Tag Archive: Romance

The ninety-first question for the Q&A section of this blog is: “Who is the person most sensitive to your needs?”

Well, this might be the easiest question yet, and the answer is exactly what you’re probably expecting, since I’ve answered similar questions in the same way before: My wonderful boyfriend. I know, I know, I go on about him on this blog, but he really is the best answer to questions like this! I have never met anyone in my entire life as in tune with me and my needs as he is. He fulfills every one, and he does so with either a smile on his face or an expression of genuine empathy and concern, and always with endless patience.

I’m sure previous questions have made it very clear that he fulfills my needs sexually, but he also fulfills them socially, and he is so sensitive to my mental and emotional needs that he can often identify when there’s something going on with me (and even, sometimes, exactly what it is) before I have even fully realized that there is. He is so incredibly observant it’s unbelievable, to the point that he can notice the slightest difference in my mind or mood immediately when it happens, and he knows when to be concerned and push, and when to let it go. He has been able to figure out problems for me that I didn’t even know I had, when I’ve been feeling upset but don’t know why, and he always knows exactly what to do to make me feel better – and when to do that versus when to just hold me and let me grieve.

I truly never thought it was possible to find someone so sensitive to me and my needs, and who could make everything feel so safe and seamless. I never have to worry about him getting angry with me because I’m upset, I never have to feel alone when something is wrong (even when I try to pull away, he knows just how to bring me back, and he always does), he has more patience than anyone I’ve ever met, and I’m just so lucky that he is so sweet, caring and empathetic. I don’t know what I did to deserve him, but I’m so grateful for having him.

So, yeah. My boyfriend is most definitely the answer for this one, and I love him with all my heart for that. 🙂

The sixty-first question for the Q&A section of this blog is: “What are the best and worst letters you have ever received in the mail?”

Questions like these are hard for me because I have an extremely terrible memory, and I don’t want to give an answer and then realize that there was a much, much better one that just didn’t come to me at the time of writing. But since there’s nothing I can really do about that, as I can’t force myself to remember things I don’t, I guess I’ll just have to go with the first ones that come to mind. And by “first ones that come to mind”, I mean first ones that come to mind the second time writing this, as WordPress deleted my first attempt. -_-

Anyway, what was the best letter I ever received in the mail? Well, that’s a bit hard to say, as I’ve received many wonderful letters in the past; mostly from ex-boyfriends. The ones I loved the most were certainly the letters and drawings my long distance boyfriend in high school sent me, the poems a boyfriend I had before having my son sent me, and the beautiful letters my longest running boyfriend sent me while we were living together. I have to say that I think the latter letters were probably my absolute favourites, as I loved not only the letters themselves, but the fact that he knew me well enough to know how much receiving physical mail meant to me, so he made sure I got some that not only wasn’t just flyers, but was actually really special and loving. Those letters meant the world to me then, and I’ll always hold them dear to my heart, because that was such a thoughtful and romantic gesture. So I’m not entirely sure which of those letters I would say was the best one, but I definitely have to say it would have been one of his. 🙂

Now, the worst letter? I’m really not sure. I can’t really remember getting a lot of bad mail, though I’m sure I have…so I guess I’d have to go with something from the CRA, because mail from them is almost never good. But there’s not much more to say about that, so…that’s all for now!

The fifty-seventh question for the Q&A section of this blog is: “What is the hardest thing about love?”

This question is very well timed, as this is something I’ve had to deal with a lot lately. See, I’ve been in many relationships in my life, but as much as I’ve been through and as much as I’ve thought I loved people before, I never actually had to face how hard love really is until now…because I guess I never actually felt it. I mean, I loved the people I was with before, to some degree, but considering how significantly different I feel in my current relationship, and how much it has already changed for me, I have to think that there’s probably a pretty good chance that I was never in love before. Or maybe it’s just that this is the first healthy relationship I’ve had in a long time, if it can be argued that I ever had one before it at all, so I’ve had to approach it completely differently than I did my previous unhealthy relationships.

Either way, as I said, lately I’ve had to face the fact that real love is not easy, but not in the ways I had thought before. In the past, I let a lot of bad things happen in my relationships, because I completely misunderstood what people meant when they said that love and relationships weren’t easy, and that good ones took work. I took that to mean that they required sacrifice, which is true, but not in the ways that I was sacrificing myself in the past…and that because a good relationship is worth fighting for, that that excused any amount of actual fighting that went on, because obviously we wouldn’t fight if we didn’t care about each other, right? Yeah. I was very naive, for a very long time, and things got pretty bad because of it. I let things get way out of hand, and stayed in situations I logically knew better than to stay in, because I thought that I must love these people if I was willing to give up so much of myself for them. What I failed to realize was that if the relationships had actually been healthy, I wouldn’t have had to give up myself.

Anyway, what is the hardest thing about love? Being vulnerable. That’s not something I’m used to. In the past, I never really felt vulnerable in any other sense than that I knew that the possibility existed that the people I loved (whether my partner, friends or family) could die (which was and is something that worries me a lot more than it probably should on a daily basis); otherwise, while I knew that my partner could leave me at any time, I never really thought that they would. See, in my previous relationships, no matter how dramatic or horrible they got, I felt a certain sense of security in them, because I knew those partners needed me (for one reason or another), so even if we weren’t happy, it was less likely for them to leave unexpectedly. I also never really gave my whole heart to those relationships, both because they were never really my ‘idea’ (that is, I was not the pursuer, and in most cases I actually wasn’t even all that interested in the person in the beginning, I just gave it a shot because I knew it was what they wanted and I felt guilty) and because I was never really all that happy in them, so I didn’t ever worry about how much the loss of them would effect me until it was happening…at which point the upset I felt was more because of how much I had invested into the relationship (time, money, energy, etc.) and how much I hated that I felt that much further from finding someone to spend my life with, than it was because I was actually sad to lose the person.

Ultimately, I knew none of them were “the one” for me, as much as I wanted them to be so I could stop starting over in relationships all the time, so I guess I just never gave as much of myself emotionally as I could have had I actually been in love with any of them…though of course I didn’t know that that was the case until I met someone I actually did fall in love with, and could see the difference. And the main difference, of course, is how vulnerable I have felt since being with him. It’s been almost crippling, at times, to be honest…and without the amazing support provided to me by both my lovely boyfriend himself and the best friend anyone could ever ask for (Mike), I would have run away from this relationship long ago. And that would be the single worst thing I could ever do to myself.

See, I’ve been through several abusive relationships, on top of a childhood that was largely good but also extremely screwed up in some ways (and, as I’ve learned, was perhaps even more screwed up than I consciously remember), so as a result, I have developed a lot of fear. Fear of being cheated on, fear of being abandoned, fear of being left for someone better, fear of being abused again, fear of being taken advantage of, fear of taking advantage of others, fear of being abusive, fear of not being good enough, fear of annoying people, fear of being too damaged, fear of disappointing my partner, fear of confrontation, etc., etc., etc…I could go on for days with the things I fear. The thing is, I didn’t realize how afraid I actually was until I was given someone to love who treats me wonderfully, because the fear of losing him is by far the single greatest fear I have ever had in my life, and has stirred up all those other fears so much that it’s been almost suffocating at times. And yes, I have tried to run, and I am not at all proud of that, but at the time I didn’t know what else to do, and I thought it would be for the best for him if I left. Luckily, as I mentioned, my incredible boyfriend and best friend both stepped up and helped me see how much I was self-sabotaging, and have helped me find methods to deal with that, so I can move through the process of healing myself enough that I won’t be so scared and feel so vulnerable all the time.

Because, y’know, I really have never felt this vulnerable in my life. This is the first relationship I’ve ever been in where I feel like I’m the one who loves more, and who is most definitely the pursuer and the one more invested in the relationship, and that is absolutely terrifying. I am so afraid of screwing this up that even the slightest idea that he could be annoyed with or mad at me fills me with anxiety, and it’s only now that I have realized just how non-confrontational I really am. I hate fighting, I hate drama; I just want everything to be happy and loving all the time…and I know that’s not possible, and I can accept that, I just really don’t want to do anything to make him leave me, and I’m so very aware, in this relationship, of how real a possibility it is that he will. Why? Because he doesn’t need me, he wants me. There is nothing I can do for him that he can’t do for himself, and it’s very hard for me to accept that, because that means he’s only with me because he wants to be, because I make him happy, and…that’s not something I have ever experienced before. I don’t know how to be with someone that actually wants me, and respects and loves me for who I am. It’s 100% foreign.

So it’s a hard process, training myself out of past thought patterns and into better, healthier ones, and I know I’m going to feel very vulnerable and very afraid for a long time, but I also know he loves me, and I know he’ll always be there for me, so…I can do it. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it is also absolutely the most rewarding, amazing experience of my life, and I have yet to spend a single moment with him in which I wasn’t completely aware of how much I love him. He is the most incredible person I have ever met, and I can’t imagine ever going through, with him, the things I went through with others. Hell, we haven’t even been mad at each other yet, because we talk everything out so well. I can only hope to be lucky enough to make that last. He is so worth it, and I am so grateful to finally be in a healthy, happy relationship. It is more amazing than I even imagined it would be.

Ahhh, another chapter of pointless conversation and the relentless description of tension between Edward and Bella. See why I said these chapters were repetitive? It’s just the same crap, over and over, except I care less and less every time. And I really don’t care about what Bella does and does not like, which is at least half this chapter, so hopefully I’ll be able to skim through that pretty quickly.

The chapter starts with eeeeeveryone watching Bella and Edward as they walk to their table in Bio class (because they are obviously just so fucking fascinating when they’re doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary), and Edward sitting closer to Bella than he used to while they watch a video (on VHS, at that). Meyer goes on for an entire page about the tension between them as they both apparently sneak peeks at one another and hurt themselves trying not to touch each other, because the desire to is just soooo strong, and Bella has to try not to hyperventilate when Edward smiles at her, which I don’t feel like is normal at all.

In the end, she remembers absolutely nothing about the movie they watched because she’s so wrapped up in Edward – god, that is a healthy level of obsession, isn’t it? – and then Edward walks her to gym class, where he looks torn and pained and all those other things you want someone to look like when they’re agonizing over how much they want you (or so I assume, given Meyer keeps telling us that), until he runs his hand down her face. Neither of them says anything after that, they both just leave, and Bella goes to get changed in a trance because apparently Edward makes her “lightheaded and wobbly” MULTIPLE TIMES in just this one chapter. Yay.

Then it’s time to play what I’m assuming is badminton but is at least some game with a racket, and Mike offers to be her partner because “some vestiges of (Mike’s) chivalry still survived“…oh come on now; he’s not gonna turn into a gigantic dick just because you turned him down, you self-absorbed bitch. He was never mean to you, not even for a second, so you have absolutely zero reason to believe he would be now. Stop acting like every fucking person who is nice to you is secretly out to get you!

Thankfully she at least thanks Mike for partnering up with her even though she sucks worse at sports than anyone else on the planet, but then thinks “Sometimes it was so easy to like Mike”, which makes me want to stab her again. Again, Mike has been NOTHING but nice, friendly and understanding to her, so there is no reason why it shouldn’t ALWAYS be easy to like Mike. Maybe I’m being too sensitive here, but this shit pisses me off. She’s still being an ungrateful bitch, and more so to the two people who are nicest to her than anyone else, and it is infuriating!

Blah blah blah, details of how much she sucks at sports yet again, and Mike is only “pretty good” at them despite winning 3 of 4 games singlehandedly, and then her “feelings of affection” for him disappear because he has the absolute gall to ask if she and Edward are together. What the FUCK is wrong with this girl?? She curses Jessica here too, for some reason…I’m assuming the logic there is that she assumes that Jess told Mike about her and Edward, but she’s been fucking with Edward everywhere she goes; I think Mike could figure it out on his own!

She gets all defensive when he says he doesn’t like that Edward looks at her like she’s something to eat, but then she thinks it’s funny because he (Edward) is doing exactly that, which is just her missing the fucking point entirely. Mike has her best interests at heart, and she’s not even considering that for a second; she’s just telling him to mind his own business and laughing because he doesn’t know how RIGHT he is! Fuck, she is the stupidest fucking character!

She doesn’t spend even two seconds thinking about the conversation with Mike once she leaves him; she just goes back to getting butterflies over Edward again as she wonders whether he’ll be waiting to drive her home or not. Of course he fucking will; he made you come to school without your car, he’s not gonna just make you walk home without at least telling you about that beforehand! That’s just common decency!

She worries about whether his family knows that she knows they’re vampires or not, but that line of thinking quickly disappears when Edward is outside the door waiting for her, as expected, and she feels all relieved. I’m sorry; I’m really annoyed by all this right now, so I may be saying things more sarcastically than perhaps I should be. Anyway, they start talking about her gym class, and she realizes that Edward was listening in on her through Mike. Edward says Mike is getting on his nerves, which is funny since all he’s done ‘wrong’ is have the exact same fucking concern for Bella that Edward keeps saying he has for her, and that he wishes she would have for herself…so yet again, someone is a dick to Mike for no good reason.

Of course Bella is all annoyed that Edward was listening in on her again, because she was somehow stupid enough to have not predicted that would happen, and then is subsequently annoyed because he doesn’t sound remorseful when he blames her for being the reason he did it (what?), so she ignores him, but walks to his car anyway. “I hate you, don’t talk to me, but please drive me home!” Bitch.

Meyer decides to take another detour in her own story here and go on about cars for a bit again, which is still entirely irrelevant to anything, but it gets Bella and Edward talking again, so clearly that was the point. This exchange annoys me though, because Bella bothers to ask what kind of car Rosalie is driving, and then immediately makes it clear – in the most bitchy way possible – that she knows fuck all about cars. So why did she ask in the first place?!

Bella and Edward make a deal that she will forgive him if he apologizes to her and agrees to let her drive on Saturday (after he rejects her attempt to make a deal that will keep him from listening in on her again; she gave that one up pretty easily), so he apologizes.

After that, they get into another completely unnecessary conversation about how Edward won’t bring a car on Saturday so that Charlie won’t find out that they’re together, even though he loves that family so there’s no reason why it would be a bad thing if he did find that out…and then they’re at Charlie’s, and Bella is asking if it’s “later” yet so she can find out about…whatever it was at the end of the last chapter that was supposed to be important. See, that’s how much I care, and how well this book sticks with me. Fuck.

Oh, right, it’s about why she can’t see him hunt. He apologizes for scaring her with his reaction to her asking if she could see it sometime, then explains that the reason it would be so dangerous for her to be around while they hunted is that they give themselves over to their senses when they hunt, so he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t hurt her. Reasonable. Bella doesn’t say or do anything in response to this, just stares at him until he tells her she should go inside, getting all dizzy and weird again.

She gets out of the car, Edward informs her that it’ll be his turn to ask questions next, and then he’s gone, and this chapter gets even less interesting than it was before. She has a restless sleep full of dreams of Edward, wakes up and bitches about the clothes she has to wear because of the weather in Forks, has a different breakfast than Charlie because for some reason he doesn’t make her any eggs, which I find hard to believe, and then she and Charlie have a completely pointless conversation in which he reiterates that she is going to Seattle and isn’t going to the dance. Really, why did we need that, Meyer? You’ve already been over those points a thousand times.

Charlie leaves, and as soon as he’s gone, Edward is there waiting for Bella. She leaves without locking the door, which we for some reason needed to know even though it doesn’t come up again in the chapter at all, then gets into the car with Edward, who is excruciatingly perfect and beautiful and blah blah blah; shut the fuck up.

“I was always good – much more than good – when I was near him.”

Really? Because I have seen absolutely no fucking proof of that. Most of the time when you’re with him, you’re pissed off about something, and the rest of the time you’re scared of something; it’s very, very rare that you’re actually happy or “good”. Even when things are going the way you supposedly want.

Edward asks her how she is and they discuss how little she slept, because hahahaha that’s so fucking funny because Edward doesn’t sleep at all, and then he starts in with the insane questions, which I’m not even going to bother to list off because they are really just the most boring questions that there is no reason why we would need the answers to at all, so I’ll only mention the especially stupid/annoying things that come of this conversation.

“‘Everything that’s supposed to be brown – tree trunks, rocks, dirt – is all covered up with squashy green stuff here,’ I complained.”

…That’s something worth complaining about? Seriously? Who the fuck would rather see dirt than vegetation? She said herself how pretty all the green stuff was, didn’t she? I’m not going back to check, because fuck that, but really; this is such a fucking bullshit complaint.

It turns out that Edward has the same CD Bella has, the one that her stepdad gave her, which is supposed to be one of those “omg we have so much in common” moments…but really, it just doesn’t come off as interesting to even the slightest degree here.

“I couldn’t remember the last time I’d talked so much. More often than not, I felt self-conscious, certain I must be boring him. But the absolutely absorption of his face, and his never-ending stream of questions, compelled me to continue.”

Uggggh, you’re definitely boring me, if nothing else, and I have NO idea how anyone could be ‘absorbed’ by this pointless crap. I don’t care what your favourite colour or movie or whatever the hell is, and why the hell would someone who has lived for centuries give a shit about that either? This is NOT an interesting character, Meyer, and there is NO reason why someone like Edward would be drawn to her, or want to know any of this shit, and even less reason why we as the readers need to know it!

Blah blah fucking blah, her favourite gemstone is the colour of his eyes, how fucking surprising, and this goes on and fucking ON, until they have another tense movie session in bio class which ends, once again, with Bella having retained exactly none of what was in the video, and after which Edward touches her face again when he drops her off at gym class. I DON’T GIVE A SHIT. NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT.

In gym, Mike ignores her, and she can’t tell if it’s because she looks distracted or if it’s because of their “squabble” the day before, and she considers feeling bad about that but decides she can’t be bothered because she’s a gigantic bitch. Oh, sorry, I read that wrong; it’s because she “can’t concentrate on him“. …No, yeah, that’s the same thing; she is really just a gigantic bitch. Seriously, how fucking self-absorbed can you be?! I’d like to say she’s not going to have many friends left if she keeps treating people this way, but clearly in Meyer’s experience that’s not the case, so it won’t happen…and that is somewhat infuriating to me. God, I hate this book.

She rushes to change so she can be with Edward one millisecond sooner, who apparently starts questioning her again the moment he sees her. Yaaaaaay. They talk for hours about stuff that’s supposed to be deep and meaningful and interesting, but that I still just don’t even give the smallest of shits about, and then Edward reminds her that her father will be home soon, so they should probably stop talking.

“‘Charlie!’ I suddenly recalled his existence, and sighed.”

I just…I just hate you so much. So, so much.

She asks what time it is, which leads to a little rant from Edward about how it’s twilight (which does not really tell her what time it is, but hey, whatever) and how sad and ‘predictable’ the darkness is, and that feels ridiculously lame to me, but apparently we need to know that that’s the safest time of day for vampires for some reason. Bella says she likes the dark, then Edward reminds her again that Charlie’s about to show up and informs her that there will be more fucking questions in the morning (kill me now), before realizing that “another complication” has arisen.

What complication is that? Why, it’s a car pulling up that isn’t Charlie’s, that causes Edward to take off quickly, because inside the car are Jacob and his father. Good times. Jacob doesn’t notice Edward, but his father does, and he is clearly not amused at all. The description of him is kind of terrifying and horrible, but of course Bella would see him that way since he’s an enemy of Edward in her eyes, so…yeah. The chapter ends with Bella realizing that Billy (Jacob’s father) does ‘believe’ the ‘impossible legends’ about the vampires, and you have no idea how happy I am that this is over. How did this book get so popular? It’s so boring, and Bella is a TERRIBLE character! Ugh. That’s it for now.

This chapter is pretty much just one giant conversation between Bella and Edward, and while it’s not too painful to read, there is, of course, a whole bunch of crap added that we definitely didn’t need, that could have made it much shorter if Meyer had cut it. I really wish she would do that, even once.

So the chapter starts with Bella arguing with herself over whether or not what happened the night before was a dream…so in other words, pointless blather. More pointless blather about the weather, breakfast, and other things follows that, and then there is Edward’s car at the end of her driveway, and Edward asking her if she wants a drive to school with him. What a nice, creepy way to start the day; a vampire walking up to you out of the fog, asking if you want to spend time alone with him in his car.

“There was uncertainty in his voice. He was really giving me a choice – I was free to refuse, and part of him hoped for that.”

Maybe it’s just me, but something feels very off about how this sentence is worded. To me, it sounds like Bella isn’t used to being able to refuse things, even though there’s been no sign in the book thus far that anyone has ever stopped her from making her own choices about things. Even Edward, who wants her to make the choice to stay away from him for her own good, is still (for some reason) giving her the right to make that choice herself instead of making it for her. So why does she seem so surprised? Maybe I’m just reading this wrong.

Anyway, it’s no surprise that she agrees to go with him, and once she’s in his car he offers her his jacket again, because he knows Jessica still has hers. Awww, he’s so considerate, and she’s so horny about his scent and his ‘perfectly muscled chest‘ that she can see through his shirt since he’s not wearing the jacket…

Bella feels awkward as they drive, because she doesn’t know what sort of dynamic they should have, and then Edward starts talking to her about her questions and reactions to him, and accuses her of editing her responses when she tells him what she’s thinking. She tells him he doesn’t want to hear what she’s really thinking, which is a stab at him for when he said that the night before, so they go back to silence until they get to school, when Bella asks where his family is.

That question leads to a bunch of useless paragraphs about how the vampires want to fit in but they like shiny cars and driving fast too much, and then there’s Jessica, waiting for Bella with her jacket. Jess is very awkward about Edward being with Bella for some reason (is it really that much of a surprise, given the night before?), so she takes off, and Edward and Bella discuss what she’s going to say to Jess when she sees her in class.

Bella uses Edward’s ability to read Jess’s mind to find out what she wants to know, which is if Edward and Bella are dating, and how Bella feels about him. Bella takes that opportunity to find out where she stands with Edward, which is surprisingly clever for her, and he tells her that she should say yes to the question of whether or not they’re dating, because it’s “easier than any other explanation“. How romantic. At least he touches her hair while he does this, to make it somewhat less depressing.

Edward leaves for class, telling her he’ll be waiting to see what her answer is to the question of how she feels about him, and then instead of being happy that she’s just found out she’s dating the guy she’s got a crush on, Bella is irritated because Edward is going to ‘cheat’ to find out how she feels. If you’re dating the guy, how is that a problem? Why can’t you focus on the good parts of any situation for more than 3 seconds? So what if he knows how you feel about him; he just revealed that he wants to date you, and not only that, but he wants to let others know that! Clearly he feels something for you, as much as he shouldn’t! Aggh.

Mike starts talking to Bella once she sits down in class, asking about her time in Port Angeles, and then they chat briefly about his date with Jess…which he seems a lot happier about than he should, considering he didn’t want to date Jess, he only went out with her because Bella wouldn’t go out with him. But hey, maybe he’s just a generally lonely guy, so he’s happy with whatever he can get. I just can’t see this being how things would legitimately go in real life, unless the guy was just using the girl. I hope that’s not the case; poor Jess.

Blah blah blah, time and classes go by, Bella “agonizes” over crap that’s really not all that bad, and then she is in class with Jess, and Jess is excited to hear about what happened with Edward. Bella tells her all about all the things we already know, and then Jess asks if Edward has kissed her, to which she responds that “it’s not like that“. …What? He said you’re dating; how is it not “like that”? Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t; if he wants you to be dating, chances are it is very much “like that”, and you should know that! Besides, this makes it sound like you’re not even dating, which again, he just said you are!

Still, Bella says she doubts Edward will kiss her on Saturday either, so I’m willing to bet he will (even if only to spite her), and then Bella tells her about the waitress hitting on him and whatnot. Again, this is all stuff we already knew that to some extent I understand why is here, but still do not believe has to be here in such detail. Unfortunately, Meyer, I was paying attention the first time you described all this shit; I really don’t need to go through it all again.

Jess points out that Edward must like Bella if he was ignoring the pretty waitress for her, even though that’s kind of flawed logic, and Bella says she thinks he likes her, but it’s hard to tell. Again, really? How is it hard to tell? He JUST SAID YOU ARE DATING. Most people don’t date people they don’t like, especially not when said person is someone who has told you repeatedly that they shouldn’t be around you for your own good, yet can’t seem to stay away from you! If how he feels about you trumps that, I’m pretty damn sure he fucking likes you! Still don’t know why, but yeah!

For some reason.

They discuss how intimidating and gorgeous he is, and Bella has a very hypocritical thought about Jess’s view on things; she says Jess acts like Edward’s being gorgeous excuses any of his flaws, but that’s exactly what Bella has fucking done. She’s decided that because he is pretty and she’s attracted to him, it doesn’t matter that he’s a vampire. Bella, seriously, become even the slightest bit self-aware, here. You can’t look down on Jess for doing something that you are doing to a MUCH worse degree. I’m pretty sure Jess would be way more turned off by finding out he’s a vampire than you have been. But damn, those abs, eh? Totally worth dying for.

Bella goes on about how much more unbelievable Edward is behind his good looks, despite that she knows next to nothing about him, and then Jess confirms that Bella likes him, and asks her how much she likes him. Is this actually a thing that teenaged girls do? Because I don’t remember doing that. I remember being asked if I liked someone, but once the answer was out, no one pressed about degrees of liking the person. But I guess Meyer needed a way for Bella to reveal that she believes that she likes Edward more than he likes her, so she and Edward can have an asinine conversation about that later, so there you have it.

Class ends, and as Bella and Jess leave, Bella makes sure to change the subject to her brief conversation with Mike about his date with Jess, so that she doesn’t have to talk about Edward anymore…and apparently they’re able to talk about that approximately two sentence long conversation for the entirety of the next class. Dear god, I’m so glad I was never that kind of teenaged girl. I’d have had to stab myself, I’m pretty sure.

When they leave for lunch, Jess confirms that Bella isn’t going to be sitting with her and her friends, and then there is Edward, waiting just outside the class for Bella.

“Jessica took one look, rolled her eyes, and departed.”

.…Why would she roll her eyes? She wants this for Bella; she’s excited about it…that is a completely nonsensical reaction. I’m not sure why that annoys me so much, but it does…maybe because Meyer keeps having Bella treat Jess like shit, and then seems to be trying to make it look like Jess is being a bitch here, when she really isn’t a bitch at all. I don’t know.

Bella and Edward exchange hellos, then don’t speak anymore (because Edward looks irritated again; yay) until they get to the lunch line, where Edward begins piling up food for the two of them. Good of him to decide what she wants, isn’t it? But hey, I guess he pays for it, so whatever.

Everyone stares at them “in amazement” wherever they go together, because I guess Edward must never have been seen with anyone outside his family ever before now, and for some reason everyone is much more invested in that than there is any reason to be…and then they’re sitting at their lunch table, with Edward proving he can eat real food if he wants to, and them discussing Bella eating dirt on a dare. This is just such important and interesting information; I can barely stand it.

Edward informs Bella that Jessica is analysing everything he does, which for some reason irritates him, despite that she is very useful to him so I can’t really see why he’d be annoyed by her…and then they discuss how pretty the waitress was, and how little Edward noticed her. Again. Luckily that doesn’t go on for long, though, before Edward mentions that something Bella said to Jess bothered him, and they have an exchange that I really can’t tell if is meant to come off as flirtatious or full of annoyance, because the comments seem quite bitey. I don’t like how the line there is so blurry with these two. How is this supposed to be a desirable relationship for the reader, when it’s always on the borderline of annoyance and even, in some cases, mental/emotional abuse?

Edward tells her that he wants to know what she’s thinking all the time, he just sometimes wishes she wouldn’t think the things she does, and then asks if she really thinks she cares more for him than he does for her. And here we go; bring on the inane crap!

Bella tries to evade the question at first, but then answers that she does think that that’s the case, which he says is wrong. After much delay due to Bella being distracted by how pretty Edward is yet a-fucking-GAIN (and this delay significantly annoys Edward, so maybe he doesn’t have as much control over his temper as we were led to believe in previous chapters), she explains that she thinks she cares more than he does because it sometimes seems like he’s trying to say goodbye to her when he’s saying something else, and because of “the obvious“. Alllllrighty then.

Edward calls her perceptive, which again she ISN’T, because it didn’t just ‘seem’ like he was trying to say goodbye, he was ACTUALLY FUCKING TRYING TO, repeatedly, and was VERY clear about it…but says that that’s exactly why she’s wrong, and then asks what she means by “the obvious“. This gives Bella a chance to get all self-deprecating and go on about how ordinary she is aside from her clumsiness, and what a contrast that is to him.

Edward tells her that she doesn’t see herself very clearly, which is true, but again not in the way he’s thinking; she doesn’t see herself clearly because she doesn’t see what a self-absorbed, whiney bitch she is on top of being ordinary and clumsy, while he thinks what she doesn’t see is how every male in school was thinking about her the day she showed up. What the fuck? Every male in school? She is one fucking person; she can’t possibly be to the tastes of EVERY GUY IN THE SCHOOL. Especially because not all the guys would be stupid enough to fall for someone as bitchy as she is, especially as she was in those first few days. Just fuck off, Meyer.

Bella gets embarrassed by the implications of what Edward is saying, so she changes the subject back to the ‘goodbye’ portion of her argument, which Edward again says is exactly what proves that he cares the most; because he can say goodbye to her if leaving is the right thing to do to keep her safe from him. …Except that he didn’t do that, and clearly can’t do it, or he would have by now, since he knows he’s a danger to her. So…yeah, more flawed logic.

They get a bit flirty about her not getting into any life threatening situations yet today, while Bella thinks more dark thoughts that I’m not even going to bother with because again, when is she EVER doing or thinking anything good without a bunch of badness as well…and then Edward asks her if she really needs to go to Seattle on Saturday, or if she just said that to get out of saying no to all the guys asking her to the dance.

Bella again evades the question by trying to get after Edward for stopping traffic so Tyler could ask her, and blaming him for being the reason Tyler thinks the two of them are going to prom together, but Edward asks her if she’d have said no if he had asked her, and she has to admit that she probably wouldn’t have. She does say, though, that she’d likely have chickened out in the end anyway because of her clumsiness, which Edward teases her about but says would not actually have been a problem, because dancing is all about who leads.

He changes the subject back to Seattle again, asking if she minds if they do something different, and she says she’s okay with them doing something different as long as she can drive, because she’s terrified of his driving…and because she doesn’t want to have to explain to her dad why she isn’t taking her truck, because “less is always more” with Charlie. I assume that means she is once again thinking far too little of Charlie, because when does she do anything other than that, so she is once again being a stupid, ungrateful bitch.

She asks Edward where they’re going on Saturday instead, and he says the weather is supposed to be nice so he’ll be staying “out of the public eye“, and that she can stay with him if she’d like to…which again surprises her, because he’s giving her the choice. Seriously, what’s up with that?

She asks if he’ll show her what he means about what happens to him in the sun, and he says he will, then says if she doesn’t want to be alone with him he’d still prefer if she didn’t go to Seattle alone, which leads to yet another conversation about how unsafe it is for her to be alone because she’s so incapable of taking care of herself, with her only argument against that being that she’s from Phoenix. She says she doesn’t mind being alone with him anyway, and he says he knows, but thinks she should tell her dad anyway, to give him some incentive to bring her back. Well that’s fucking creepy.

She still doesn’t agree to tell Charlie, and then suggests they talk about something else, and then this chapter gets even more inane than it already was, as they discuss Edward and Emmett’s hunting trip, and their preferences as regards the type of animals they eat. I’m sure this is only coming up because Meyer wants to make it important down the line, but that just depresses me all the more, because it means there’s more pointless, stupid crap to come. Yaaaay.

I hate Bella’s attitude during this conversation though, because she’s intentionally trying to be ‘cool’ about everything he’s saying, and that drives me right up the fucking wall. As boring as this conversation is for me, if it were actually happening with someone in real life, it would be pretty fucking interesting and/or terrifying, so acting like it’s just the most natural thing ever is just fucking stupid.

For a brief, shining second it looks like this conversation is going to end, when Edward asks her what she’s really thinking, but then nope; right back to bears as Bella asks how they hunt bears without weapons. REALLY? Do you still not understand what a fucking VAMPIRE is, you brainless twit?!

Blah blah blah, on and on about how Emmett is like a bear when he hunts and Edward is like a mountain lion, so their preferences are fitting, and then Bella asks if she’ll ever get to see them hunt, which Edward says absolutely will not happen, in the angriest way possible. She asks if it’s too scary for her, and he says if that was it he’d take her out right away, because she needs a healthy dose of fear so she might actually listen to him, and then says he’ll tell her the real reason why she can’t see it later.

Then they get up to head off to class, and Bella vows not to forget that he promised to tell her later, which is not surprising given how she’s acted when he’s said similar things before, so looking forward to more of that shit…and then the chapter ends. So yeah, all talk and not a lot of action, and definitely not anything all that interesting or important at any point. This is such good writing.

So the truth comes out in this chapter, and it’s way less interesting than it should have been. Thankfully this was a shorter chapter, because it was also a very boring one.

The chapter starts with Bella asking if she can ask Edward “just one more” question, which he for some reason agrees to, so she asks him how he knew she had gone south instead of going to the bookstore. Now, having read ahead I know why Meyer put this in here, but honestly it doesn’t make sense; any normal person would just assume that he had used the thoughts of others, like he said he did, to see that she went south instead of going to the bookstore, and would therefore not assume there was anything strange about him knowing that.

…But oh, wait, Bella is not a normal person, right? She’s special, so of course she would know to ask about that instead of just making a logical connection. Yeeeeeah.

Anyway, she asked it so Meyer could have Edward reveal that he followed her scent, which Bella doesn’t know how to respond to, so she changes the subject to point out that he didn’t answer one of her previous questions. Okay, I get why she wouldn’t know what to say here, but wouldn’t she at least think something about it? Even just that it might be a point in the ‘probably a vampire’ column?

She asks him again how the mind reading thing works, and if the rest of his family can do it, to which he responds that they can’t; only he can. He says he has to be relatively close to the person whose mind he’s reading unless their ‘voice’ is very familiar to him, and that he usually tunes out the voices when he’s not specifically trying to focus on one of them.

Bella asks why he thinks he can’t hear her thoughts, and he says his only guess is that her mind doesn’t work the way everyone else’s does…and y’know, Edward, you really have no idea how right you are about that, but not in the way you’re thinking. I am more curious about why the rest of his family can’t read thoughts. Wonder if we’ll ever get to know?

Anyway, Bella gets self-conscious about the fact that she’s different, thinking it means she’s a freak like she always suspected (well, at least someone noticed), but Edward just laughs it off and says it’s just a theory before turning the conversation back to the theory that Bella was supposed to share with him. Apparently Meyer can’t let any conversation go on without a completely useless interruption, though, because at this point, Bella suddenly notices how fast Edward is driving and freaks out about it. Yep, as mentioned before, this book is fucking riveting.

They go back and forth for a while about whether or not his driving is unsafe, but eventually he slows down, and then – after a page of this nonsense – finally gets back to the matter at hand. Bella delays again, afraid he’ll be angry with her for her theory, but he tries to reassure her by being calm, and asks her what got her started on her theory, since she said she didn’t come up with it on her own.

She tells him what Jacob told her, which is really fucking horrible of her since she told Jacob she would take his secret to her grave, so she damn well shouldn’t be telling it to one of the very fucking people it’s about, especially considering how dangerous the Cullens supposedly are, and the fact that Jacob told her flat out that their kind were enemies of his kind! She doesn’t actually give a shit about anybody else, does she? She knows this could potentially kill Jacob, but because she wants Edward, she’s willing to risk that! She doesn’t even pretend that she figured out on her own that Edward was a vampire, from piecing things together with Jacob’s story; no, she tells Edward that Jacob mentioned his family! And after she said how sweet Jacob was, and how much she liked him!

She somehow only realizes that she has endangered Jacob after revealing everything, so she tries to make it better by confessing that she forced him to tell her, as though that’s really gonna save him. Edward asks why she forced him, so she explains about the other boy mentioning that the Cullens weren’t allowed there, then explains how she manipulated Jacob into telling her by flirting with him. And that still significantly annoys me.

I wish she was this self-aware.

Edward asks what she did after that, so she tells him about her internet research, then reveals that she decided, after not being able to make sense of the information she found, that it didn’t matter what he was. Edward is not pleased to hear that; he says he’d rather know what she’s thinking than have her go on not telling him the truth, but that she’s insane, and he is clearly very angry that she is still not accepting how dangerous he is, even though she has a pretty good idea now.

She asks if she’s right about what he is, saying she’s just curious, then asks how old he is and how long he’s been that age, getting exactly the answers she expected. She then asks about a few of the sun and coffin related vampire stereotypes, which he says are all myths, then reveals that he can’t actually sleep at all, ever. Well, that must suck. …Or be awesome. If he doesn’t get tired, then I guess definitely awesome…though I do like sleep. Anyway, whatever.

Edward points out that she hasn’t yet asked about his diet, so she explains how Jacob said that his family wasn’t supposed to be dangerous because they only hunted animals, not people, which he vaguely confirms before reminding her that he is still dangerous. He goes on to explain that sometimes they make mistakes, like him allowing himself to be alone with her, and then Bella thinks for a while about how scared she is that he’s pulling away from her instead of how scared she should be that he might drink her fucking blood, so she asks him to tell her more.

She asks why they hunt animals instead of people, so he tells her that he doesn’t want to be a monster (awwww), but that eating animals doesn’t fully satiate them, it just keeps them strong enough to resist temptation most of the time, and admits that it’s very difficult for him when he’s so close to her. She tells him that she can tell he’s not actually hungry at that moment because of his eyes, and because men are crabbier when they’re hungry, so he says she’s observant again, and I’m just…not gonna comment on that this time.

She confirms that he was hunting with Emmett on the weekend, and he says he didn’t want to leave town because it makes him anxious to be away from her, and that he worried about her the whole time he was gone. How sweet, and completely ridiculous. He doesn’t think it is, because of how often she hurts herself (he notes how she hurt her hands on the beach trip), but it is, because he knows next to nothing about her except that he should stay away from her, has no reason to be anything but annoyed by her, and should really not be worrying about what trouble she will get in without him around when he knows she’s in greater danger with him there…but whatever.

She asks why he and his family weren’t in school on Monday, since he says they got back from their hunting trip on Sunday, and she is angry that she had to feel disappointed by his absence when he could have been there, because eeeeeeeverything is all about her, all the time…and this is where we get our first glimpse at the stupidest quality that these vampires possess. He doesn’t tell her all the details yet, so I won’t say anything in case there’s somehow someone left in the world that doesn’t know what happens to these guys when they go out in the sun, but he does reveal that something happens that isn’t painful to him, and says he’ll show her what it is sometime.

She harps on him for not calling her (does he even have her number? I don’t remember her giving it to him at any point), which confuses him because he says he knew she was safe, but she feels that she should have known where he was, because…why, exactly? They’re not dating, they’re not even friends, they’ve only talked once; why the hell should he feel compelled to tell her his every movement? Hell, why would he have to do that even if they were dating? She doesn’t need to know where he is all the time. But because she doesn’t like not seeing him, because she says it makes her anxious, she feels like he owes it to her to tell her where he is. This is definitely the basis for a super healthy relationship, isn’t it?

Edward gets upset about her feeling that way, saying he doesn’t want to hear it because it’s wrong and not safe, because he’s dangerous and she needs to actually grasp that, and she responds:

“‘No.‘ I tried very hard not to look like a sulky child.”

Seriously? “No”? He’s telling you he’s dangerous, and that it upsets him that you won’t listen to him when he tells you that, and you’re just gonna say “no”? Well hell yeah you sound like a sulky child! How stupid, self-involved and childish are you??

He tells her he’s serious, but she says she is too, and that it’s too late, so it doesn’t matter what he is. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with this girl? Why does he still want her after all this bullshit? She’s obviously a complete fucking moron! He snaps at her for saying it’s too late, then asks what she’s thinking for some reason, and notices she’s crying. When he asks if she is, she says no, because again she’s a fucking child, but he’s not as stupid as she is so he doesn’t just fall for it, and instead apologizes.

They sit in silence for a minute, then he asks her what she was thinking just before he saved her from the group of guys, because her expression had confused him…and y’know what? I really don’t give a shit about any of this. It’s so fucking boring. She goes on about trying to remember self-defence stuff, then tells him she didn’t think of running because she falls down a lot when she runs, and this is all just so he can express further concern over her well-being for some fucking reason. Then she demands to know if she’ll see him tomorrow, and he says she will because he has a paper due, but what happens if it’s sunny tomorrow? Then he’ll be breaking his promise to her, and she might have an epic meltdown! Better be careful, Edward!

He does promise to be there, though, and to save a seat for her at lunch, and then they have some pointless back and forth about his jacket before he makes her promise not to go into the woods alone. He claims there are more dangerous things than him out there, which makes her shudder, but she doesn’t ask for any further detail thankfully, she just agrees. If you couldn’t tell, I’m trying really damn hard to get to the end of this chapter ASAP. I think I might fall asleep otherwise.

Blah blah blah, they say goodbye, he blows in her face, she makes a fool of herself by being clumsy again, and then he is gone and she is home, talking to her dad about the fact that she’s back early. SO EXCITING! They go on about how she should go to bed, and how she left her jacket in Jess’s car so she has to call her, but then Jess calls her instead, wanting to know what happened with Edward, but Bella says she’ll tell her in class tomorrow because her dad is there.

She goes to shower and realizes how cold she is, which I assume is supposed to be significant for some reason, then gets ready for bed and climbs under the covers, thinking about the things she’s sure of, which are that Edward is a vampire, that he thirsts for her blood, and that she is “unconditionally and irrevocably” in love with him. And that’s the end of the chapter. YAY! God, I’m so glad that’s over. This book is so painful to read…but, see you next time anyway. *sigh*

In this chapter, Bella gets exactly what she wanted, yet still isn’t happy about it. Surprised? Me neither.

It starts with the girls (Bella, Jessica and Angela) on the road to Port Angeles for their shopping excursion, with Bella now referring to her father as “The Chief” because I guess he’s not even good enough for her to use his real name anymore, nonetheless call him ‘Dad’. Still don’t get this; still don’t like it.

“It had been a while since I’d had a girls’ night out, and the estrogen rush was invigorating.”

Really? Estrogen rush? This makes me a little bit sick, and I don’t even know why. But I am pretty damn sure I have never experienced an “estrogen rush”, and right now I’m feeling pretty damn thankful for that.

Their activities on the drive sound pretty stereotypical and annoying, so I guess that’s fitting, and we get a bunch of info about the girls’ relationships or lack thereof that I just really don’t care about at all, before Jessica and Bella get into a conversation about how she’s never been to a dance or been in a relationship before. Man, this book is boring.

The only point of this conversation seems to be to put Bella in a bad mood, because nothing can be nice for more than a minute in her life, and that bad mood is brought on by the girls alerting her to the fact that Tyler has been telling people he’s taking her to prom. Apparently that is why Lauren hates her so much, which is disappointing because as you know, I’d really hoped it was because of Bella herself…but hey, at least Lauren has a reason for hating her, whereas Bella just hates everything all the time for no apparent reason.

Bella contemplates running Tyler over with her truck, which is very nice of her, and then there’s almost an entire page of the girls trying on dresses that I could not possibly care less about if I tried.

“The girls’-night high was wearing off in the wake of my annoyance at Tyler, leaving room for the gloom to move back in.”

Oh, fucking fantastic. Just what we needed. You don’t even pretend that this book is going to be a pleasant read, do you, Meyer?

After some pointless filler, Bella gets up the guts to ask Angela if the Cullens are often out of school, which they are, when the weather is good. Apparently they go backpacking! Yeah, I bet. Bella decides that she likes Angela more because she answered the question in exactly the way she (Bella) wanted her to, which Jess wouldn’t have done, because Jess is clearly a horrible person that deserves all the bad shit Bella thinks about her, despite that she’s never done a single damn thing to Bella that wasn’t positive.

They all decide to go to dinner, but not until after the girls drop off their clothes in the car and go for a walk to the bay, so Bella decides that while they do that, she’ll look for a bookstore (which she has to do alone, even though they want to go, because reasons). Bella finds a bookstore, but it’s the wrong bookstore (of course; Jess pointed it out, so it had to be wrong), so she keeps looking for another one, thinking incredibly negative, emo thoughts all the while. She sees Edward’s Volvo as she goes and decides that he’s a “stupid, unreliable vampire”, though I’m not sure how the hell he’s being unreliable or stupid, and then “stomps” onward, because again, she’s a fucking child.

She eventually realizes that the way she’s walking is away from the stores and into the warehouse district, so she decides to loop around at the next corner and try searching for a bookstore on some different streets on the way back, at which point a group of four men comes around the corner she was planning on taking. As they pass her, they call out to her and she responds, then turns away and keeps walking while they laugh at her, ignoring them when they tell her to wait.

She keeps walking as it gets darker, then realizes that two of the men from the group of four are walking behind her, so she speeds up her pace and reminds herself where her pepper spray is, which is nowhere useful and was therefore very important to have mentioned. Thanks, Meyer.

This scene is drawn out for far longer than I’d have liked, but eventually Bella ends up in an area where she initially expects to be able to get away easily, but then realizes that the other two men are between her and the rest of civilization. She tries to run, though she’s got nowhere to go but closer to one of the pairs of men, so she prepares to scream and/or defend herself. All she ends up doing, though, is stopping in the middle of the alley and telling the men, quite pathetically, to “stay away” from her, which of course only amuses them.

Drawing this scene out even further (it’s already been multiple pages of this, by this point), Bella tries to recall any self-defence she knows, then is reminded by her own brain how pathetic she is and that she will not possibly be able to take four guys on, no matter what she remembers.. Luckily for her, at just that moment (because timing -_-), a car appears, so she dives toward it just as it spins around to reveal an open passenger door, because things really do always happen just like in the movies, right Meyer?

A voice that Bella instantly recognizes as Edward’s commands her to get in, so she does, because she feels ohhhhh so very safe just hearing his voice. ❤ ❤ ❤ Fuck, this is stupid. She is repeatedly afraid of him for different reasons in this book, while at the same time Meyer is trying to convince us that she feels 100% safe and protected when she’s around him. You can’t have it both ways, Meyer!

Edward speeds away from the scene as Bella fawns over how pretty he is again, before realizing how angry his facial expression is and asking if he’s okay…which, of course, he is not. What kind of stupid question is that?!

When they’re out of town, Edward stops the car and asks if she’s alright, then asks her to distract him, telling her he needs to calm down. Well, at least he’s got coping methods to deal with his anger, which is more than can be said of Bella, who doesn’t even try. Proving that point, she tells him she’s going to run Tyler over before school, explaining that she’s going to do so because he’s telling everyone he’s going to prom with her, and she thinks if she endangers his life then he won’t feel like he has to make amends for endangering hers. Cause that’s just completely sound logic, right there.

Blah blah blah, more about that, then Edward reveals that he sometimes has a problem with his temper, but he knows that it wouldn’t be useful for him to hunt down the guys that were bothering Bella, so he’s trying to clear his head. Bella points out that it’s late and Jess and Angela will be worried since she hasn’t met them yet, so Edward drives her back to town, right to the restaurant where she’s supposed to meet them, despite that she never tells him that that’s where they were going to go.

Edward informs her that he’s taking her to dinner, then tells her to go let Angela and Jess know that so he doesn’t have to risk running into the guys that followed her again (what? Why would he?), so she calls out to them. Apparently they are very relieved that she’s okay, and very concerned about where she’s been (which they ask her about, and she tells them she got lost and ran into Edward), but when Edward asks if he can join them for dinner, they reveal that they already ate…so they can’t really have been all that concerned.

Bella decides that she doesn’t need to eat, but Edward disagrees, then asks Jess and Angela if it’s okay if he takes her home instead, which they agree to once Jess verifies from Bella’s expression that it’s what she wants.

“I wanted nothing more than to be alone with my perpetual savior. There were so many questions that I couldn’t bombard him with till we were by ourselves.”

God, this is annoying. And why can’t you just leave the poor guy alone? If you see him as your ‘savior’, the least you could do is be appreciative of what he’s done for you without annoying him with your endless fucking questions! If you know it’s going to be a ‘bombardment’, which is NOT a good thing, then why the hell are you doing it?! Especially cause you just saw how worked up he is! Lay off for five minutes!

The girls leave, and Bella – because she’s a complete fucking moron who just can’t help but get in her own way – ‘insists’ that she’s not hungry, and then sighs in resignation when Edward continues to head to the restaurant anyway. What the sweet fuck is wrong with this girl? She wants a date with Edward, one is offered to her, and now she acts like it’s some huge fucking inconvenience to her to have to go on it?! WHY DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU, BELLA? And why can’t you EVER be grateful when things you want come your way??? What could there possibly be to sigh about when the guy you’ve got a crush on WANTS TO TAKE YOU TO DINNER???? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH! I don’t know why this is so infuriating to me, but it definitely is.

It takes almost a page for them to get a table, because Meyer feels the need to point out how attractive Edward is to everyone and how classy and sophisticated he must be because he refused the first table offered to them, but eventually they do get one. Once they’re seated, Bella criticizes Edward for ‘dazzling’ the hostess, saying it’s not fair, but Edward pretends to have no idea what she’s talking about. He asks if he dazzles her, which she admits he does, and then their server shows up, just as horny for Edward as everyone else.

Bella is clearly jealous of the attention Edward is getting, but Edward is only paying attention to her, asking her if she’s okay, apparently waiting for her to go into shock. Uh…why? Nothing bad happened to her. She was in the street, some guys were there, no one even got close to her, and then she was gone. It could have been a big deal, but it wasn’t, and other things happened since then…why would she go into shock?

The waitress comes back after getting their drinks, they order – well, Bella does, anyway – then Edward orders her to drink, which is weird, so she downs both her drink and Edward’s, then gets cold and wants her jacket, but realizes it’s in Jessica’s car. Edward instantly strips his off, giving Bella a chance to check him out, then gives it to her so she can get all swoony over how it smells as she puts it on.

Edward compliments her, then they discuss her not being in shock again, because Edward says any normal person would be, which just seems like complete and utter bullshit to me. Again, WHY? What she “went through” wasn’t that traumatizing. If she didn’t go into shock after being nearly killed by a van, why would she after nothing actually happens to her?

Bella confesses to him that she feels safe with him, which displeases him, then comments on the colour of his eyes, saying she’s got a theory as to why he always seems to be in a worse mood when his eyes are darker than when they’re lighter. Blah blah blah, pointless back and forth, the waitress comes and says stuff, and Bella decides she’ll tell Edward her theory when they’re in the car, because she has some questions for him first.

She starts with the questions by asking him why he’s in Port Angeles, but he refuses to answer that, so she starts talking about hypothetical situations in which one could read minds with only a few exceptions, and asks how that works, if there are any limitations, etc. She makes it very obvious that she’s asking how he found her and knew she was in trouble, so he answers in the same way she’s phrasing things; as though it’s a hypothetical question.

He informs her that one would not need to have perfect timing to make it work, as long as they were paying attention, then comments on the fact that only she could get in trouble in a place as small as Port Angeles. She tries to remind him that they were talking about a hypothetical situation, but he continues to make it clear that he knows she’s talking about herself, so she asks how he knew, giving up on the act (thank god).

She tells him he can trust her, then tries to touch his hands, but he pulls back, so she does as well. He says he’s not sure he has a choice but to trust her, because she’s more observant than he gave her credit for, but that is the biggest pile of bullshit I have ever heard. She’s not observant, it’s just fucking obvious, Edward, and you know it.

Like this.

He comments on what a magnet for trouble she is, she asks if he puts himself in that category even though she knows the answer, which is “Unequivocally“, and okay, yes, I do like how Edward talks sometimes. Not getting the hint that she shouldn’t touch him, Bella reaches over and touches his hand again, despite that he yet again pulls back, and then shockingly, she actually thanks him in a genuine manner.

He responds positively to her gratitude, but makes it quite clear she has to fuck off with the touching him thing by putting his hands under the table, then admits that he followed her to Port Angeles because he wanted to keep her alive. He teases her about how difficult she makes that for him while she feels a “surge of pleasure” at the knowledge that he’s been following her (at least she does consider that she should probably have a problem with it, but still…).

She asks if he thought he interfered with fate in keeping her from dying the first time with the van, but he responds that that wasn’t the first time she was close to death; the first time was the first time she met him. She is briefly afraid of that, but then remembers how safe she feels with him and is fine, which is fucking stupid, because she’s not even actually considering what he’s saying about how dangerous he is, yet again. He’s being pretty fucking clear here; take the out!

“‘You remember?’ he asked, his angel’s face grave.”

…Angel’s face? What the fuck? We’ve established that he’s a vampire, he has made it more than clear that he’s dangerous; how does he have an angel’s face? Is it just because he’s fucking pretty? Dear god I hate this book.

He calls her on still being there despite remembering how scary he was the first day, and she says it’s because he somehow knew how to find her today…which again is bullshit, because while she might be there at that exact moment because he found her, she’s still following him around instead of running away for her own stupid reasons that have nothing to do with his choices or any sort of intelligent decision-making.

He tells her to eat as he explains how he found her, starting by telling her it’s harder to keep track of her than other people because he can’t “hear her mind”, so he had to use Jessica’s instead. He says he hadn’t expected her to be able to find trouble in Port Angeles, so he hadn’t been paying too much attention until he realized that she was no longer with Jessica anymore, so he went to try to find her at the bookstore she was supposed to be going to. He came up with a general idea of where she’d probably be going, then accessed the thoughts of people on the street to see if they had seen her, because while he didn’t see any reason that he should be worried for her, he felt anxious. Awwwwwwwwwwww.

Blah blah blah, he listened to more people, it got later, then he gets angry as he recalls hearing what the men who were surrounding Bella were thinking, and gets super dramatic in his storytelling. He tells her again how hard it was to restrain himself from hurting them when he took her away, and explains that that’s why he didn’t let her go with Angela and Jessica; because he knew if he was alone, he’d go back and find them.

After a few moments of silence, he asks if she’s ready to go home, and she says she is (kind of; there’s sappy crap, but who the hell cares?), so he pays their bill and off they go. As they leave, Bella thinks about how much she wishes she could touch him but can’t, and is glad he doesn’t know that, and I was going to rag on this, but y’know what? I’ve felt that too. So I won’t say anything bad about this one.

More fawning over Edward and how good he smells and whatever the hell, and then he starts to drive them home, telling her it’s her turn to share with him, and that’s the end of the chapter. Sorry if this seemed rushed or confusing, but I was behind due to Labour Day weekend eventfulness, so…I guess it kind of is. So yeah! Chapter 9 next time for sure, but whether or not there’ll be more than that depends on how the next couple of days goes. Wheee!

In chapter 6, we get to hear some stories and watch as Bella is even more of a manipulative bitch than usual, significantly lessening any sympathy I could possibly have had for her in the future…and otherwise, we get a lot of description of random crap that no one really cares about. Yay!

The chapter starts with Bella waiting for her truck to be returned to her, then it showing up, which is just thrilling…and, of course, she shares more of her extremely negative expectations, and those expectations are met as usual (at least in Bella’s mind; I don’t think anything is even half as bad in ‘real life’ as she makes it out to be). Blah blah blah, blathering on about Edward; I’m fucking bored…Mike is excited about the weather, and Bella is (surprise surprise) incredibly negative about it…annnd someone doesn’t like her and is talking about her, and this is somehow surprising.

I’m sorry, I know it’s not nice to talk about people the way this girl is about her, and that she’s supposedly only doing it because she’s jealous that Edward is paying attention to Bella, but come on…Bella has given people enough reason to think she’s a bitch; has she seriously not noticed that at all somehow? BE SELF-AWARE, BELLA. You’re fucking annoying, and people don’t like that. Or at least normal people don’t. …Or maybe I’m wrong about that, given how many of Meyer’s fans seem to admire Bella as a character. God, I am just so sad about humanity right now.

Anyway, yeah, this girl named Lauren has a hate on for Bella and thinks she should sit with the Cullens instead of with Mike and his friends…which is stupid because Bella has only really been seen with Edward once, but whatever. Mike defends Bella, then we’re back home with Charlie, and we have this line:

“I think he felt guilty for leaving me home alone on the weekends, but he’d spent too many years building his habits to break them now.”

…What? Ah, fuck it; I’m not even going to bother.

Bella and Charlie have a brief conversation about the place Edward said he was going on the weekend, so we can see that Edward lied to her, and then Meyer jumps right into the next morning without a section break and goes on for a page about the weather, the types of cars Bella’s friends drive, and all their names. Wheeeee.

“Three other girls stood with them, including one I remembered falling over in gym on Friday. That one gave me a dirty look as I got out of the truck, and whispered something to Lauren. Lauren shook out her cornsilk hair and eyed me scornfully.

So it was going to be one of those days.”

Isn’t every day one of “those” days, Bella? It has definitely seemed that way so far, at least! Also, am I really supposed to believe that more than one person is this bitter about her having one conversation with Edward? No one even seems to notice him most of the time; they certainly didn’t after Bella’s accident…so why should I think it would actually be this way? Just because it’s high school? Fine. Let’s go with that.

Mike is happy to see Bella and even happier that she didn’t bring Edward, seating arrangements get sorted out (which is just fucking riveting, I swear), and then we have almost an entire page of description of the things they drive past and how beautiful they all are. That’s great and everything, Meyer, but please make me care about this story. These descriptions just aren’t doing that, though it is nice that they weren’t excessively negative for once.

The boys make a fire, which ends up burning blue and mesmerizing Bella (admittedly, it does sound pretty, but don’t driftwood fires give off toxic smoke? :P), and then a while later some of the guys decide they want to go on a hike to the tide pools, so Bella has to decide if she wants to go and risk falling into them, because she is THAT clumsy. I’m not sure why Meyer keeps reminding us of this; is her clumsiness going to be a super important part of the story later on, or is it just supposed to endear us to Bella in some way? Because it really doesn’t. It’s actually very annoying.

In the end, Bella decides to go with the guys because Lauren wants to stay behind, and Bella doesn’t want to have to be around her because she said mean things about her. So off they go, with Bella finding the negative in everything yet again, and trying not to fall anywhere. More descriptions of how pretty everything is, which again, I’m not knocking because I like pretty things and that Bella is seeing them as such, but it’s just more filler to skim over…and then we’re back to Edward again because of course we are. *sigh*

When the guys want to go back to get food, Bella goes with them, falling a bunch (seriously, why do we care about this?), and now I’m confused as to why any of this was in here at all. Why was this hike integral to the story? It doesn’t seem to have served any purpose. Sure, there is a group of people from the reservation at their campsite when they get back, but couldn’t they have just as easily shown up while Bella was still at the fire instead of wasting two pages with a useless hike?

Anyway, everyone is introduced to everyone else and Mike brings Bella some food, Bella thinks about how much she likes Angela (thank god she likes SOMEONE other than Edward, even if it is for stupid, self-absorbed reasons) and about the flow of time (which is a significantly less interesting train of thought than it sounds like it should be), and then everyone disperses, leaving only Bella and a few others at the fire.

One of the others that stays behind is one of the kids from the reservation, Jacob, who of course is interested in Bella, just like everyone else (for whatever reason)…so we get a description of how beautiful he is, despite that he’s a few years younger than Bella (which is weird), which cannot possibly mean anything other than ‘potential love interest’ in Meyer’s world.

“However, my positive opinion of his looks was damaged by the first words out of his mouth.”

…Or not. But the first words out of his mouth are just asking if she’s Isabella Swan, and apparently it’s just the fact that he didn’t know – without ever having spoken to her before – that he should be calling her Bella, that is the problem. Seriously? You are that judgemental, Bella? Wow. No wonder you’ve never had a boyfriend.

Jacob reveals that Bella’s new truck had belonged to his dad, so they talk about his family for a minute because Bella was forced into playdates with Jacob’s sisters when she came to visit her dad growing up, and we learn that apparently she was a bitch even before she was 11, since she says she “kicked up enough tantrums to end the fishing trips” by then. Yep, something to be proud of for sure.

Jacob catches her up on what his sisters are doing now, they talk about the truck and rebuilding cars for a while, and Bella seems impressed enough with him, but there is no hint as to what the supposedly traumatizing things that Bella mentioned blocking out at the beginning of the book are (because they supposedly related to Jacob’s family). …Unless that was just the forced playdates, in which case, fuck you, Bella.

Lauren notices that Jacob is paying more attention to Bella than she’d like, so I guess maybe her disdain for Bella is personal, not just because of Edward…which is surprisingly refreshing, because at least someone is seeing Bella for what she is and not just being ‘jealous’ of or in love with her. At least I can pretend it’s that, anyway. Lauren brings up the Cullens, clearly trying to stir up trouble as the next thing we learn is that the Cullens “don’t come” where they are, and then Tyler manages to distract her with a CD somehow, so clearly she is not the sharpest knife in the drawer either.

Bella is conveniently observant enough in this instance to notice that when the boy says the Cullens “don’t come” there, he’s implying that they aren’t allowed, but then Jacob is asking her a question that allows her to bitch about Forks, so she is understandably distracted for a second. And then we get into the part of the book that makes me hate Bella even more than any of the previous parts, if you can believe it.

“I was still turning over the brief comment on the Cullens, and I had a sudden inspiration. It was a stupid plan, but I didn’t have any better ideas. I hoped that young Jacob was as yet inexperienced around girls, so that he wouldn’t see through my sure-to-be-pitiful attempts at flirting.”

Wow. Fucking wow. Not only are you a stupid bitch, but you’re a stupid manipulative bitch, who is PLANNING on using a young, nice boy that you actually find interesting and pleasant to talk to, so you can find out information about Edward! Do you have ANY conscience, whatsoever? How can you DECIDE to USE someone, knowing they are at least somewhat interested in you and that they have done nothing wrong? What the fuck is wrong with you?? WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THIS CHARACTER??

Bella asks Jacob to walk down the beach with her, while trying to use the expression Edward uses on her to get her to do what he wants, because that’s not fucking creepy at all, so off they go. They discuss Jacob’s age as they walk and Bella ‘flutters her eyelashes’ at him (sweet Jesus, seriously, just fucking kill me now), and this whole exchange is fucking painful because the only thing Bella cares about is that she thinks her act is too obviously fake for Jacob not to notice; she doesn’t, at any point, think about how fucking WRONG it is to be putting on that act in the first place.

Bella asks about the older guy who made the comment about the Cullens, still using manipulative conversational tactics as she does so, and Jacob tells her about him (Sam), and explains that the Cullens aren’t supposed to come onto the reservation. He tells her he’s not supposed to tell anyone why the Cullens can’t go there, so Bella lays it on even thicker, trying to ‘allure’ him into telling her about it, which for some reason fucking works because everything hates me.

“‘Do you like scary stories?’ he asked ominously.

‘I love them,‘ I enthused, making an effort to smolder at him.”

I hate this book. So fucking much.

Jacob asks Bella if she knows any of the old native stories, and she admits she doesn’t, so he goes on to tell her about the Flood and whatever, then reveals that a ‘legend’ claims that his tribe descended from wolves, so it’s against tribal law to kill wolves. Then, he says, there are stories about the “cold ones”, and his great-grandfather made a treaty with the cold ones to keep them off the natives’ land, because the cold ones are the natural enemy of the ‘wolves that turn into men’, which is what the natives are.

Instead of being surprised that Jacob has just revealed that the natives are werewolves, Bella decides to question the idea that werewolves have enemies, instead. What the fuck? Jacob says they have only one enemy, but that the ‘pack’ of cold ones that came during his great-grandfather’s time didn’t hunt the way the others did, so they weren’t dangerous to the tribe, which is why his great-grandfather made a pact with them instead of killing them. The deal was that if the cold ones stayed off their land, the natives wouldn’t expose their identities to the ‘pale faces’. Couldn’t that have gone both ways, since the natives were also, y’know, werewolves, and might not want the ‘pale faces’ to know that either? Or is it somehow well known that werewolves are a thing in this universe? If so, I’m surprised that’s only coming up now, but Bella doesn’t seem to think any of this is weird.

Anyway, Jacob goes on to explain that this pack of cold ones was ‘civilized’, meaning they claimed not to hunt humans and instead preyed on animals, though of course there was never any guarantee if they got too hungry. Bella asks how all of that relates to the Cullens, assuming they must be like the cold ones from his great-grandfather’s time…but Jacob informs her that they are, in fact, the same cold ones from that time. Oooooh. God, I just do not care at all.

Apparently two of the cold ones are new, but the rest date back to before the ‘pale faces’ even arrived, which I would imagine is a long fucking time (and I’m not sure that timeline really fits with Jacob’s story, but whatever; I can’t be bothered), and Jacob says that they are ‘blood drinkers’. Bella looks off into the distance as she processes that information, and then they talk pretty casually about how Jacob just violated a sacred treaty, because y’know, who cares, right?

Bella promises to keep Jacob’s secret and acts like she thinks Jacob is just a really good storyteller, when actually she’s seriously considering that what he’s told her could be accurate, and then Mike and Jessica show up and someone or other is jealous again because Bella is in the company of someone else and I am just so fucking sick of this shit.

Bella informs Jacob that Mike is “definitely not” her boyfriend, because she wants him to keep thinking she’s interested in him because she’s still a manipulative bitch even though she already got the information she wanted out of him…but she makes sure Mike doesn’t see her wink at Jacob, supposedly to spare his feelings. No it’s fucking not; it’s so she can still pretend he has a chance too, when he’s of use to her. Fuck you, Bella; just fuck you so very, very much.

Bella tells Jacob he should come visit her when he gets his license, and finally feels guilty for using him, but not enough to fucking stop, and she somehow thinks it’s okay because she “really does like him”, and can see them being friends. Y’know, casually ignoring the fact that you KNOW that’s not what he wants or what you led him to believe would be the case, you stupid bitch.

Mike and Bella talk for a brief moment about Jacob’s stories, then Mike informs her that they’re all packing up to leave, so Bella says goodbye to Jacob and tells him she’ll come visit the next time her dad is down that way. Then off they go, with Bella having been able to find a way to avoid sitting next to Mike, since that’s obviously the worst thing ever, and that’s the end of chapter 6.

—

Chapter 7: Nightmare

Ohhh, this chapter was really just a whole lot of nothing, wasn’t it? Sooo many pages of nothing, and then a whole lot of rage. Alright, here we go.

We start off with more of Bella’s annoying attitude as she gets home, goes to her room and puts on some music to try to distract herself from thinking about what Jacob told her, though I really have no idea why she is so intent on not thinking about it. She wanted to know, now she knows, and it’s not like she’s going to be able to avoid thinking about it forever, so why bother? And really, why bother in the first place? How does not thinking about it help anything? I don’t get this character at all.

Meyer’s description of Bella listening to music goes on for almost an entire page, and then she finally falls asleep. She has another dream …and who wants to guess what it’s about?! That’s right, Edward. But not just Edward this time; Jacob is there too…and, amazingly, Mike! He’s not completely insignificant to her, apparently! Yay!

Seemed fitting.

In the dream, Bella is in the forest, trying to find the sun, when Jacob shows up and tries to pull her back into the darkest part of the forest. She tries to ask him what’s wrong, but he just insists that she run, as Mike calls out to her to run in his direction. Jacob suddenly turns into a werewolf as Mike continues to yell at Bella to run, but she ignores him in favour of a light she sees coming toward her from the beach…which is, of course, Edward. His skin is glowing and he’s beckoning her to come to him, which she does, despite that she can see his fangs. Because she’s an idiot, Jacob has to defend her, so he (in werewolf form) dives at Edward, going for the jugular, which causes Bella to cry out and then wake up.

When she’s awake, Bella realizes that it’s 5:30 am and she’s lying in bed still fully dressed (including boots…okay then), with all the lights on. She tries to get back to sleep but can’t, even after doing a little striptease, so she decides to go have a shower instead, noticing after she’s done that Charlie is already gone. When she’s all ready for the day, she bitches about the internet, gets some cereal, puts on some music, fights with some pop-ups, and does an internet search for vampires. Well goddamn, this is exciting.

As would be expected, her search returns a large variety of results, some of which she skims over entirely, and others she reads in depth. I’m not going to get into anything about any of that, because it’s really just a few pages of things you could look up on the internet yourself (in fact, the page that Meyer references actually does exist), but in the end, Bella feels that she hasn’t found much of anything that coincides with what she’s seen of the Cullens, or what Jacob told her.

That doesn’t make much sense to me, given that what she lists as the qualities she’s seen/heard from Jacob should coincide with at least some myths, yet she says there were few myths that matched even one of those criteria…I feel like I’m missing something here. But am I going to look in depth at the website Meyer mentioned to fact check this? Hell no. You can if you want (http://vampiresaz.webs.com/), but that is just way too much work for me to bother with for a book like this that I care so little about. Sorry guys.

Bella is perplexed by the fact that those things don’t match up, though, as well as the fact that according to popular culture, Edward should not be able to go out in sunlight…so she angrily shuts off the computer and feels stupid for having looked anything up in the first place. She wonders briefly what is wrong with herself that would make her do that, but then:

“I decided that most of the blame belonged on the doorstep of the town of Forks – and the entire sodden Olympic Peninsula, for that matter.”

Of course, because no blame for your own actions should ever go to you, you self-absorbed little fuckwit. So. Much. Hate.

She decides she wants to leave the house, so she takes off into the woods on foot, which is obviously the best idea ever given the dream she just had…and the fact that she goes on here about how bad her sense of direction is. I just…so very much do not understand why anyone likes this character. I know I’ve said that a thousand times before, and I’m sure I’ll say it a thousand more, but really, come on! What is there about her that’s likeable at all, at this point?

Blah blah blah, names of trees, who gives a fuck…and finally, after almost a page of descriptions of crap in the forest, Bella sits down on a recently fallen tree and realizes how stupid it was to wander out into the forest when she was trying to escape the memory of her dream. More descriptions of forest crap follow that realization, and then Bella decides that it’s much easier to believe Jacob’s stories in the woods than it was in the comfort of Charlie’s house, so she allows herself to consider the things she deems important to figure out about the situation. And what are those?

1) Is it possible that what Jacob said about the Cullens could be true?

2) If so, what is she going to do about it?

At first, she decides that it isn’t possible that the Cullens could be vampires, but then as she thinks more about Edward’s speed, strength, shifting eye colour, skin, beauty, grace, the fact that he and his siblings don’t eat, and that Edward apparently talks like he’s from a turn-of-the-century novel (I suppose I could see that) – all of which are things she just said are not qualities listed on the vampire websites (unless I read that wrong), remember – as well as the fact that he skipped the blood typing class, only said no to the beach trip when he knew where they were going (which…I get the point she’s making here, but if the sun was supposed to bother him, then wouldn’t he have skipped entirely for that reason?) and seems to always know what everyone (except her, cause she’s special) is thinking…she starts to wonder.

She decides, in the end, that the Cullens are something inhuman, whether vampire or otherwise, but that she can’t tell anyone else about that because she knows they’d think she’s crazy. So that leaves her with two options; either do what Edward said and avoid him – which she decides she cannot do because she is “gripped in a sudden agony of despair” just thinking about it (this could not be more emo if it tried) – or she can do absolutely nothing and continue looking at Edward as a good thing despite the danger he could pose to her, because he did save her life after all, so he must not really be all that dangerous. Riiiiiiight. Let’s go with that.

She thinks about the ‘dark’ version of Edward from her dream and decides that that was just a reflection of her fear of the idea of vampires, not an actual fear of Edward, especially because even in the dream she cried out in defence of him, because she didn’t want Jacob to hurt him….even though he was calling to her with his fangs out. She figures she’s in too deep to get out of it now, so why bother trying, and this is all just terrifyingly reminiscent of the thought process that accompanies abusive relationships. She’s making excuses for things she should rightly be afraid of because she ‘loves him too much’ to let him go, even though he could cause her real, physical harm. Again with the excellent role models, Meyer. You scare me.

“Now that I knew – if I knew – I could do nothing about my frightening secret. Because when I thought of him, of his voice, his hypnotic eyes, the magnetic force of his personality, I wanted nothing more than to be with him right now. Even if…but I couldn’t think it.”

See, this paragraph is fucking horrifying. Does Meyer intend it to come off that way, or does she really not see how incredibly unhealthy that thought process is? The fact that young, female readers can be influenced by that kind of thinking terrifies me. “He’s so pretty, and I love him, so I can’t leave him even if he scares me and even if I know he might kill me.” Really? THIS is the example you want to set? Fuck, I am furious, but more than that, I am just scared for the younger generation. This is not okay. I am not okay with this at all.

Bella gets up and finds the path she was on again, eventually finding her way home, then gets changed and writes a paper she has due for school. She feels a lot better now that she’s made her incredibly stupid decision, because at least it was a decision, and that’s all she needs, apparently. She thinks the decision she made is ‘ridiculously easy to live with‘, which is even scarier, but I guess there’d be no book if she didn’t. Pity, that.

She finishes her paper, thinks about her trip to Seattle with Edward and how it makes her feel the same as taking a walk with Jacob did (what?) and how she should be afraid of it but isn’t, then sleeps without dreaming and wakes up to a sunny day. Seeing the sun puts her in a good mood, which finally leads her to say something nice about Charlie, thank god…and it’s nice to have some positive descriptions of things in this book for once. It should be sunny in this book more often.

She heads out to school, and because she gets there early she decides to stop at a picnic bench and go over some of her homework. She doesn’t get very far before she starts daydreaming, though (who wants to guess it’s of Edward?!), and then Mike shows up wearing shorts, like a bunch of other people, despite that it’s supposedly March.

“‘Hey Mike,’ I called, waving back, unable to be half-hearted on a morning like this.”

…What? Are you usually intentionally half-hearted? How am I always learning worse and worse things about this character?!

They talk briefly about the fact that her hair has red in it, which is just so fucking fascinating I want to claw my eyes out, as is the rest of their conversation about when homework is due…especially because of the very feminist nature of Bella’s topic for her paper; “whether Shakespeare’s treatment of the female character is misogynistic”. I find that incredibly ironic. Almost cruelly so.

Eventually, the conversation turns to Mike asking her out for dinner, and Bella asks herself:

“Why couldn’t I ever have a pleasant conversation with Mike anymore without it getting awkward?”

Well, Bella, for one, I’ve seen no proof that that’s even the case, but if you really feel it is, you probably should have told him by now that you’re not interested. If you’d just done that before, he wouldn’t still think he had a chance with you, and probably wouldn’t act in accordance with that assumption. So…yeah.

But does she even take this opportunity to tell him she’s not interested? Helllll no! Instead, she tells him she doesn’t think it would be a good idea because she thinks it would hurt Jessica’s feelings. Great, now she’s just gone ahead and blamed Jessica for getting in the way of their love, when she isn’t even actually interested in him. Poor Jess; she’s never done anything wrong, and she gets treated like shit by Bella any time it isn’t convenient for Bella to give her what she wants.

Mike is a complete idiot though, apparently, as he somehow didn’t notice Jess’s interest in him, so Bella points out that idiocy and takes off to class. Later in the day she gets invited to go dress shopping with Jess, Angela and Lauren, even though Lauren hates her and she doesn’t need a dress since she’s not going to the dance…but she’s not unsure if she should go for those reasons; no, she’s unsure if she should go because who knows what else she could be doing, because obviously Edward is gonna show up and ask her out for some reason, despite that they haven’t even gone to Seattle yet. Logical, Bella.

Riiiight.

As they walk to class, Jess is trying to talk to her, but she is – as usual – completely ignoring her in favour of her own thoughts about Edward. Such a good friend, this one is. Fuck. She is excited to see the Cullens and compare them with what she knows of vampires, but gets a little afraid when she realizes that they might be able to read her thoughts…but when she gets to the cafeteria, none of them are there anyway.

“Desolation hit me with crippling strength.”

Really? Desolation? Edward and his siblings aren’t there one day, and desolation cripples you? Wow, yeah, this is just so completely unhealthy it’s almost unfathomable. I am seriously appalled by this. I really want to just stop reading now…

“I shambled along behind Jessica, not bothering to pretend to listen anymore.”

Yep, should have just stopped reading. Wow. Fucking WOW. Not only are you a shitty enough person that you weren’t actually listening in the first place because you’re too self-absorbed, but now, because something didn’t go your way, you’re not even going to PRETEND you’re capable of being a decent person? Why the sweet fucking HELL does anyone want to be friends with this fucking bitch? She is a HORRIBLE person, and clearly isn’t even trying to HIDE that anymore! Jess deserves SO much better! Aggggh, this seriously pisses me off, because I have KNOWN people like this, and they ALWAYS get much better friends and boyfriends than they deserve! FUCK YOU ENTIRELY, BELLA!

Bella sits down to lunch and answers some questions Angela has about the paper she wrote on the weekend as she “spirals into misery” (fuck you, fuck you, fuck you), and then Angela invites her to go dress shopping as well (Jess invited her before), so she agrees, deciding that she needs something to distract herself. Great. You’ll be great fucking company, won’t you?

She is disappointed all over again when Edward doesn’t show up for Biology, and then her entire gym class is somehow taken up by an explanation on the rules of badminton…as will the next class be, because the teacher didn’t finish in time. Okay, so either her teacher talks painfully slowly, or the class is full of complete and utter morons, because badminton is not that hard to understand. Does Meyer know anything about sports, or is Bella a reflection of her? Because that would explain a lot. Though honestly, I don’t think anything would explain why it would take two full classes to explain the rules of badminton. Not unless the classes were like 5 minutes long, anyway.

“I was glad to leave campus, so I would be free to pout and mope before I went out tonight with Jessica and company.”

Firstly, is it really called a ‘campus’ if it’s for high school? I hadn’t thought so, but maybe I’m wrong. Secondly, FUCK YOU, BELLA! You are so fucking annoying. “Free to pout and mope“? Really? How old are you; 12? GROW UP!

Her plans fall through, though, because Mike asks Jessica on a date, so they postpone dress shopping until the next day. I’m…kind of surprised that Mike asked Jess on a date, cause that’s really pretty terrible, given he has feelings for Bella still, so that’s not really fair to Jess…but wait, why am I surprised? Meyer did write his character too, after all, and everyone is fucked up in Meyerworld. Poor Jess.

Bella decides to focus on homework, then reads through emails from her mom and replies with a lie. Remember how bad she is at lying because she apparently doesn’t like to do it? Yeah, we just see more and more proof of that, don’t we? Also, she doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about talking to or hearing from her mother, for someone who claimed that her mother was her ‘best friend’.

She grabs a book and heads down to the backyard to read for a while, a scene which takes entirely too many paragraphs for Meyer to describe, given how simple it is (and how stupid; “…the thick lawn that would always be slightly wet, no matter how long the sun shone“? Right, that’s the way that works), and I’m not even going to bother going into all the details Meyer added here because none of them are even slightly necessary.

After reading, she falls asleep, and wakes up to the sound of Charlie’s car in the driveway. She feels like she’s not alone when she wakes, but ignores that feeling and runs into the house to get supper started. After dinner they watch TV together, and then she asks Charlie if she can go dress shopping with the girls the next day, which seems to be something only added so she could show just how much Charlie doesn’t get girls, yet again. No man is this stupid, Meyer. Men like opinions on their clothes too, and they also have friends; he would not be so completely vapid as to be unable to figure out one or two reasons why her friends might invite her to come shopping with them even if she wasn’t going to be buying anything. Really now; this is offensive and stupid.

“I wouldn’t have to explain this to a woman.”

“He seemed to realize that he was out of his depth with the girlie stuff.”

Yep. Those comments just…make me stabby. He’s not a fucking moron just because he’s male, Meyer.

Bella continues to demean Charlie’s intelligence as the conversation turns to whether or not he’ll be able to feed himself while she’s gone. He points out that he did so for 17 years, but what is Bella’s response to that?

“‘I don’t know how you survived,’ I muttered, then added more clearly, ‘I’ll leave some things for cold-cut sandwiches in the fridge, okay? Right on top.‘”

What. The. FUCK?! This man is her FATHER; how can she be so condescending and disrespectful to him? Why does he put up with that? How stupid does she think he is? Does he REALLY need her to tell him EXACTLY where to find fucking COLD CUTS? I’m sure he can figure that out on his own! Fuck, she is SUCH a fucking bitch, and she thinks she’s SO MUCH BETTER than everyone else around her! SO MUCH RAGE! Stop talking to your fucking father like he’s a child! And you know why you don’t know how he survived? Because you WEREN’T THERE, and you never even gave him one fucking chance to show you whether or not he could cook when you showed up, you just assumed you were oh so fucking superior and went ahead with that! GAHHHHH! I need to calm down.

In the morning it is sunny again, but the Cullens still don’t seem to be at school, so Bella is emo. Conveniently, Lauren is unable to attend the dress shopping that evening, so Bella doesn’t need to deal with her being there, so luckily, she decides to make the most of the trip and be in a good mood for it so as to not ruin things for Jess and Angela. Thank fucking god. But let’s see how long that actually lasts, I guess, before I get too excited.

Bella figures Edward won’t cancel their Seattle plans without at least telling her, so she uses that for hope to get through (so it’s not really about Angela or Jess being happy after all…surprise surprise), and the chapter ends with her feeling excited about the trip and writing a note to Charlie “explaining again where to find dinner“, just in case OPENING THE FUCKING FRIDGE DOOR is too hard for him to figure out. And here comes that rage again. Okay, I’m going to end this recap now instead of dealing with the last few lines of the chapter, lest I break something.

Alright, so obviously plans have changed again, and I’m posting just the chapter 5 review for today…which is actually a shortened version of my original one, because I was intending to use it as part of a larger post that encompassed a few chapters, but it’ll have to do because I am not going to go back and try to rewrite everything I cut out of it 😛 From now on, since plans keep changing, I’m just going to go ahead and say I don’t have a plan, and post whatever makes the most sense at the time based on where Mike and I both are. So without further ado, chapter 5!

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Chapter 5, I must admit, was not actually all that horrible. It was boring, for sure, but there was far less whining than in previous chapters, so that helped. I still like Edward better than anyone else in this book, though, and I’m not sure how to feel about that given what I’ve heard about their relationship as the story progresses…but anyway, enough about me.

The chapter starts with Bella all starry eyed because Edward asked her to go to Seattle with him, which makes her late for class, because if she is not embarrassed at least a few times in every chapter, this just wouldn’t be Twilight. She goes on about Mike again for a while, and how she’s still going to go on his beach trip because she feels bad for turning him down…though why the hell anyone would want to take a trip to the beach when temperatures are only in the high forties, I don’t know. But hey, this is a guy with a crush on Bella, so I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised that he doesn’t have the smartest inclinations.

Annnd then we’re back to unhealthily obsessing over Edward, but at least this time something comes of it; Edward invites Bella over to eat lunch with him, since he’s decided to sit apart from his family for once. Ooooh. When she joins him, they have a bunch of awkward and seemingly pointless conversation wherein Edward makes vague references to stealing her away from her friends because he’s given up on having self-restraint, despite that she’s been such a bitch to him…and she tries to get him to agree that they are friends, which he finally does after some weird back and forth, during which he warns her again how bad he is for her. Yeah, we get it.

I kind of like the sarcastic undertones that Meyer sprinkles throughout this exchange, but I still don’t feel like this is building up to a pairing that I, as the reader, would support or ‘hope for’. So far, Edward seems a bit too cocky and arrogant to be as attractive as everyone seems to think he is, and Bella seems too weak and bitchy to be attractive to someone who is viewed as highly as Edward is, so I just don’t buy them together. I don’t feel chemistry between them during this conversation, and I feel like I should; the sarcasm should have felt a lot more flirtatious than it did. As it was, it just kind of felt like they were both repeatedly annoyed/offended by one another.

Anyway, the conversation goes on even more pointlessly, as Bella tries to figure out if he’s a superhero (oh god) and passive aggressively calls him on being a frustrating hypocrite, and then Bella eventually switches back into bitch mode as she asks him to ‘do her a favour’ and let her know next time he’s going to ignore her ‘for her own good’. And then we’re back to the fucking superhero shit again, which normally wouldn’t bother me but it goes on for way too long, before Bella finally realizes that Edward was serious when he told her he was dangerous.

She doesn’t feel afraid of that, though (of course), so that conversation pretty much ends there, and then Bella heads off to class alone, since Edward is so badass that he’s decided to skip. And I shit you not, all of that was 8.5 pages, and there are still 15.5 pages to go, just of this chapter. Shoot me now.

Half a page later Bella gets to class, where her teacher hands out blood typing kits to each of the students, and shows them how to test for their blood type by using Mike as his example. We quickly learn that Bella can’t handle the sight of blood, as she begins to get nauseous and dizzy as soon as Mike’s finger is pricked, and I get the feeling that Meyer thinks she’s really clever for giving Bella this phobia, but Meyer, seriously, this is fucking lame. Unless this becomes a big plot point at some point later in the book, this is just stupid (and even if it did, it would need to be an incredibly fucking interesting point to be worth all this shit), and we really didn’t need pages devoted to showing us just how phobic Bella is, and how embarrassed she is about it.

But, of course, that’s exactly what we get; Bella feels faint, her teacher has Mike take her to the nurse, but she stops on the way there and asks to sit down for a bit, and of course, Edward shows up. Y’know, because when you ditch class you definitely stay on school property; that’s just the best idea! Edward steals Bella away from Mike, despite both Mike and Bella’s pathetic arguments, and teases her about her phobia as he carries her to the nurse.

Once there, we get the usual scene you see when someone goes to the nurse for something entirely uninteresting, Bella tries to be funny but fails, Edward expresses concern for her, they briefly discuss Mike, and then Edward reveals that when he skips class, all he does is sit in his car listening to music. Riiiiiight. Fuck, Meyer, didn’t I tell you to fuck off with the convenience crap when we were still on The Host??

When the nurse comes back, Bella is suddenly cured…and because Meyer didn’t listen to me when I just fucking said to stop with the convenience bullshit, someone else is brought in so she can easily leave. The boy who’s brought in, though, is apparently bleeding, because Edward tries to protect Bella from it but she says she can smell it anyway…which surprises Edward, because apparently people can’t smell blood. Um, what? Yes they can. I can, anyway, and I’m pretty sure I’m not as special as we’re clearly supposed to think Bella is for being able to smell it.

Anyway, Mike comes out and seems displeased that Bella is doing better, they have some boring chatter about the weekend, then he leaves, reminding Bella that she has gym class…which is obviously just the worst thing ever. But surprise of surprises, Edward can save her from that too! So he does. I’m not going to get into how since it really shouldn’t have taken a page to do, but either way, they’re both free to go, since Edward is going to take her home because he is such a perfect gentleman.

They leave the office and amazingly enough, Bella actually manages to thank Edward for what he’s done for her without also being a bitch! Then they talk about whether Edward is going to the beach with the group or not, which of course he isn’t because he’s a sparkly vampire (oops, spoiler alert; I meant to say because he “doesn’t belong in the same world“…ugh), but it does give Bella the opportunity to say “Mike-schmike“, which is both really fucking stupid and a lovely offensive remark against Mike, who has been nothing but nice to her. I’ll say it again, Bella: You are a total bitch.

Bella tries to go to her truck, but Edward won’t let her because he’s supposed to drive her home…which leads to an entire page of them arguing over whether she can drive home or not, even though we all knew that in the end, she’d go with him anyway, so we really didn’t need all this filler. Yet again.

Bella decides that if she’s going to have to go with him, she might as well sulk and be completely immature about it, because that’s fucking attractive (seriously; she is not acting like a girl with a crush at all, despite that she supposedly has one), but then she recognizes the music he’s playing, and decides that’s a good enough reason to drop her act before she’s even started it. Okay, sure.

They drive for a while, then Edward starts asking her about her mom, which depresses her, so they start talking about how old she is. Edward says she doesn’t seem seventeen, and it seems we’re supposed to believe that Bella comes off as much older than she is to the people who know her, but I find that incredibly fucking hard to believe given what an immature, spoiled brat she is.

“Well, someone has to be the adult.”

Really, Bella? You think YOU’RE the adult, as compared to your parents? What the unholy fuck?!

Edward asks her why her mother married Phil, which seems to be kind of a stupid question, but Bella answers anyway, so they discuss whether or not Bella is happy about the marriage…all so we can be reminded – yet a-fucking-gain – of how ‘generous’ and ‘selfless’ Meyer’s characters are. Uggggh.

They end up on the topic of whether or not Edward is scary, and Bella responds saying something that almost sounds flirty but I guess is not, and then they get on to talking about Edward’s adoption and the death of his birth parents. Tragic. I feel like I should care a lot more than I do.

Bella tries to bring up Edward’s siblings, but he says he has to go, then reveals that he won’t be in class the next day because he’s going hiking. He asks Bella to be careful not to get hurt, so she responds sarcastically and slams the door – because remember, she is “the adult” – and then Edward drives off, and that is the end of chapter 5.

Why can’t this book get any better? Why am I hating these characters and their interactions more and more with every page? Why is none of this believable? Why did this book get such rave reviews, and why did I think it was going to be better than The Host? Why did I ever decide to read this crap?

Okay, so we start with Bella’s dream about Edward, which is nothing more than her chasing him as he walks away from her in darkness. Exciting. After that first dream, she has similar dreams about him almost every night, and then Meyer changes the subject back to how hard Bella’s life is again. Yay.

The month after the accident is generally crap because people are paying attention to her and she hates people caring OR not caring about her, and because Tyler is always trying to make amends with her, which is just soooooo annoying. Tyler following her around makes Mike and Eric jealous, so clearly her circle of swoony guys is growing, so we’ll undoubtedly get to hear even more whining about all the unwanted attention she gets as the book goes on.

Bella tries to turn all the attention onto Edward, which seems like a terrible idea given his disposition, but luckily no one pays much attention to her attempts because they didn’t see Edward until the van had been pulled away, and somehow that meant his contribution wasn’t important. She wonders why no one else noticed where Edward had actually been standing before the accident happened, then realizes that no one else is as obsessed with him as she is, which is super pathetic…and yes, dear, it is.

Bella is jealous of Edward for the fact that everyone continues to avoid him, as they did before, instead of falling over themselves to talk to him as they are with her…and she’s also displeased that he no longer looks at her or acknowledges her presence when they’re in class together; instead sitting as far away from her as possible. She decides that his disposition toward her must mean that he wishes he hadn’t saved her life, because “no other conclusion” makes more sense than that. Yeah, that’s not super emo or anything.

We go back in time slightly to the day after the accident, when Bella finally realized that she probably shouldn’t be pissed at Edward for not telling her all his secrets when he JUST SAVED HER LIFE, and we see how when she tried to talk to him in class, he gave her no response beyond a nod. That seems a pretty reasonable reaction, to be fair; she didn’t try to apologize for being an ungrateful little bitch, she just tried to say hi, so why should he feel like engaging in conversation with her?

Back in the ‘present’, Bella watches Edward creepily from a distance, but when they’re in class she pretends to ignore his presence the way he does to her, because that’s obviously the mature thing to do when you’ve wronged someone and should be apologizing. She keeps dreaming of him and being miserable, and her depression over Edward is so apparent that her mother can tell something’s wrong through email, so she calls a bunch (which, of course, Bella doesn’t like).

Once again, though, why does Bella refer to her mother as “Renee”? These people are her parents; there’s no reason why she should be referring to them by their first names when she’s thinking about them. Her relationship with her mother is definitely supposed to be good, so this just feels awkward.

Then we’re back to Mike, and how happy he is that Bella and Edward no longer seem to communicate, because it means his imaginary chances with her were not spoiled by Edward saving her life. He grows more confident and bold, ignoring Edward, and then we get into a bunch of pointless blather about how disappointed he is about not getting to have his snowball fight, but how happy he is that they’ll get to go to the beach soon. Who the fuck cares?

As if this chapter wasn’t inane enough, the next couple of pages are nothing but talk about some stupid girls’ choice dance, and how Jessica wants to invite Mike, which Bella is fine with since she’s not going. She thinks because Jess doesn’t try very hard to convince her to go, it means she likes her more for her popularity than her company, which is fucking stupid because Jess was one of the first people to pay attention to her anyway, before she became popular, and because it`s incredibly fucking obvious that Jess isn`t going to push her on going because she wants Mike to say yes to her, so she sure as hell doesn`t want Bella there when she knows Mike will want to be with Bella instead. Why Bella needs to turn everything into a “woe is me, no one really likes me for me” whine fest, I don’t know, but here we are yet a-fucking-gain.

The next day, Jessica is quiet and avoids Mike, who is also quiet, so we all know what happened, but Meyer feels the need to draw it out anyway. Mike and Bella get into the expectedly awkward conversation about Jess asking him, and how he wants to go with Bella instead, which she should have fucking expected since she knew he had feelings for her, so why she feels the need to make him SAY he wants to go with her, I don’t know…but of course she does, then feels guilty about it and tells him he should go with Jess.

He asks if she already asked someone and she tells him no, then lies about having to go to Seattle that day and presses him on saying yes to Jess. He decides she’s right and leaves, and then class starts, with Edward for some reason staring at Bella now with a frustrated look on his face. Man, I am so bored.

Bella stares back at Edward until the teacher calls on him to answer a question and he looks away (apparently reluctantly, though of course that’s what Bella would want to believe), at which point Bella looks down and hides her face so he can’t see how emotional his staring at her has made her. She actually realizes that the amount of influence Edward has over her is unhealthy, yet I highly doubt that’s going to make anything about their relationship healthier in the future, or that Meyer will ever acknowledge again that it’s really not healthy, so I’m not going to get my hopes up here.

Bella tries to ignore Edward for the rest of class, but then at the end, when she’s getting ready to go, Edward tries to get her attention. She has to fight her swooniness over his voice and “too-perfect face” when she looks at him, but when she finally responds, she does so in a bitchy way again, snapping at him as she asks if he’s speaking to her again. God, Bella, you’re such an idiot; you owe him an apology, yet he’s seeking you out, and you’re totally in love with him and want him to talk to you, but when he does you act like a petulant child again? Wtf?

Edward is amused by her childishness, which annoys her all the more, so she asks him what he wants and he apologizes to her for not talking to her, saying it’s for the best if they’re not friends, but that he’s aware that he’s being rude. Yep, he is definitely way more of an adult than she will ever be.

The bitchiness escalates as Bella tells him it’s too bad he didn’t figure out that they shouldn’t be friends earlier so he could have saved himself the ‘regret’ of having saved her, which is just ungrateful and emo and fucking annoying all over again, and shocks Edward to even hear. She tells him she knows he regrets it, which understandably angers him because she’s presuming to know his feelings and STILL BEING UNGRATEFUL (she still has yet to truly thank him or apologize), so he tells her she doesn’t know anything, which causes her to turn away and storm off. Oh, fuck you, Bella.

Luckily she trips on the doorjamb and drops everything as she goes to leave the room, so there is some justice in the world, but instead of laughing at her like she might deserve, Edward simply goes and stacks all the books she dropped and hands them to her. Is she finally grateful? No, she thanks him icily and storms off again without looking back. Wow. Just fucking wow. Why is anyone interested in her again? Edward really should regret saving her by this point.

Next we’re off to gym, where Bella apparently can’t stand up straight because they’re playing basketball, even though she’s never given the ball, and I’m left wondering whether Meyer really wanted us to like Bella or not. She’s such a pathetic, annoying character that I’m starting to think she didn’t, but I can’t understand why she would write a character we weren’t mean to connect with or at least feel sympathy for. I have yet to find a reason why I would ever want to read even the rest of this book, nonetheless the rest of the series, if I didn’t have to…

Anyway, yeah, Bella sucks at gym and blames it on thinking about Edward even though she sucked at gym before she met Edward, and thinking of things other than her balance should not cause her to lose her balance…and then she rushes out to her truck, which we get a brief damage assessment on before she finds Eric leaning against it. Unsurprisingly (for me, anyway; apparently Bella is surprised), Eric is there to see if she wants to go to the dance with him, so she turns him down, using the same excuse as she used on Mike.

Eric leaves, and Bella hears Edward laugh as he passes in front of her truck, which ignites her anger again, so she jumps into her truck and pulls out in just enough time to be cut off by his car. He blocks off the path out of the school as he waits for his family, annoying Bella even further as traffic piles up behind her, and then Tyler, who was in the car behind her, comes up to her truck and knocks on the window. Who wants to guess what he wants?!

Bella thinks he’s annoyed that she’s blocking traffic, so she immediately tells him it’s Edward’s fault, but he shrugs that off, saying he’d wanted to ask her something…which is, of course, if she’ll ask him to the dance. Fuuuuuuck, I am sick of this shit. Just fucking end, okay book? We do not need to sit here watching Bella have the same fucking conversation three times!

Once again, she tells him she won’t be in town, which apparently he already knew from Mike but had hoped was just a way to let Mike down easy…as though it would have gone over so well if she’d lied to Mike and then gone with someone else. Smart, Tyler. She reiterates that she’s going out of town, which Tyler is fine with because there will still be prom to go to, and then off he goes.

Bella can see that Edward is laughing hysterically in front of her, watching her through the rear view mirror, and she considers rear ending his car, but he takes off before she can. She drives home and starts to make chicken enchiladas for supper, which sounds incredibly fucking delicious and I want it, and as she does so, Jess calls her to tell her that Mike agreed to go to the dance with her. Bella ‘celebrates’ with her, then discovers that she is going to call her other girlfriends to tell them too, so Bella suggests that those friends ask Eric and Tyler to the dance. Jess agrees that they should, then reiterates that she wishes Bella would go to the dance (so maybe she can stop whining about Jess not really liking her), but Bella gives her the same excuse as she gave the guys. Lies for everyone!

After she gets off the phone, she tries to concentrate on what she’s doing, but she is (once again) too distracted by thoughts of Edward. As she analyzes his every word, she realizes that he must see how she feels about him and not want to lead her on, which is why he says they can’t be friends; because he’s not interested in her. This leads, of course, to her thinking about how wonderful and perfect he is, and how that means that of course he wouldn’t be interested in her because she’s not interesting, because Meyer is winning at portraying self-esteem in girls once again…and then she’s angry about it and decides to leave him alone completely.

She turns her mind to the sunny places she intends to go for college as she finishes making the food, and then Charlie comes home and is suspicious about the green peppers, but because he’s a big, brave cop, he tries the food anyway. What the…oh, fuck it.

Bella tells Charlie that she’s going to go to Seattle for the day to make her lie become the truth…no, wait, she starts to tell him that she is, then asks if it’s okay because she feels rude just telling him, even though she doesn’t want to ask permission because doing so “sets a bad precedent“. I just…seriously, this character. There are no words.

Charlie asks why she’s going, so she tells him it’s because the library in Forks sucks, and because she wants to get some new clothes. He mentions that the truck doesn’t get good gas mileage, so she says she’ll make a few stops along the way (cause that makes it better), and he asks if she’s going by herself. When she tells him she is, he worries about her getting lost because Seattle is so big, but she argues that Phoenix is bigger, and that she can read a map. He asks if she wants him to go with her, which she is horrified by for no good reason that I can see, so she tells him she’ll be in dressing rooms all day to put him off, because of course he’s a man and Meyer is super stereotypical. Needless to say, it works, and Charlie gives up.

And then, god help me, this chapter keeps fucking going, with Charlie asking her if she’s going to the dance and her telling him she doesn’t dance, and then it’s the next morning, and Bella is trying to park as far away from Edward as possible so she can resist the temptation to smash into his car. When she gets out of her truck, though, she drops her keys into a puddle, and then Edward is suddenly there, handing them to her. She asks him how he appears out of thin air the way he does, and he responds with my favourite line of the book so far:

“‘Bella, it’s not my fault if you are exceptionally unobservant.‘”

I’m not even sure why I like that line so much, but I do; it made me laugh. Bella, of course, is not pleased by this remark and scowls at him, then asks him why he blocked traffic the day before. If she’d just left it at that, the question might have been fine, but being the child that she is, she needs to add in a snipey comment about how he was supposed to be pretending she didn’t exist, not irritating her to death. Grow the fuck up.

Edward tells her he did it to give Tyler a chance to ask her to the dance, which pisses Bella off even more, and that subsequently amuses Edward even more, but then Bella takes it a bit too far when she accuses him yet again of trying to irritate her to death “since Tyler’s van didn’t do the job“. He calls her ‘utterly absurd’, which is kind of stupid because no high school guy would actually say that, but either way, Bella turns and walks away, holding back the urge to hit him.

As she leaves, Edward calls after her, but she just keeps going. He apologizes for being rude (again, when the fuck is she going to apologize for anything?!), even if he knows what he said was true, and she asks why he won’t leave her alone. He says he wanted to ask her something but she sidetracked him, and he seems to be back to normal again, so she asks him if he has multiple personality disorder, then asks what he wants to ask.

Because nothing makes any fucking sense in this book, Edward asks her (after a brief interval in which he makes it look like he’s going to ask her to the dance, and she gets pissed) if she wants a ride to Seattle the day she’s decided to go. Why the hell would he offer that, when he just told her it was for the best if they weren’t friends, and she’s been such a gigantic fucking bitch to him?!

Skipping the stupid drawn out back and forth Meyer feels compelled to add ALL THE FUCKING TIME, Bella asks him why he’s offering, and he says it’s because he was planning to go anyway, and he doesn’t think her truck can make it. She turns him down because she’s a fucking moron, but he persists, which eventually leads to her pointing out that he didn’t want to be her friend, and him correcting her, saying he said it would be better if they weren’t friends, not that he didn’t want to be. *sigh* Fucking Christ, I am so done.

He says it would be more prudent for her to not be his friend, but he’s tired of trying to stay away from her, and she gets all hot and bothered over that and can’t say anything. Why the hell is he so drawn to her? GIVE ME A FUCKING REASON, MEYER! Stop telling me everyone wants to be with her without giving me a single goddamn reason why ANYONE would want to be with her, nonetheless HIM! This is so fucking stupid!

He asks again if she’ll go to Seattle with him and she just nods, so he smiles, tells her that she should stay away from him but he’ll see her in class anyway, and leaves. And that’s the end of the chapter. I’m fucking pissed; this is such bullshit. If he really thinks she should stay away, he should stay the fuck away from her, and at some point SOMEONE in this book needs to call her on her fucking attitude. And I mean really call her on it, not just point out that she’s being a bitch and then trip over themselves to apologize for pointing it out because despite that she IS an annoying, whiny bitch, they can’t help but want to fuck her. Agggggh. Done. I’m just done.

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And I think that should be enough posts to illustrate what this book is like; whiny, annoying, repetitive, and full of characters that make absolutely no fucking sense. Can you see how every recap would just be reiterating the rage of the last one? So, on to the full review! Yay.